Teen Titans: Warped
by Mr Joey Bon
Summary: The Teen Titans have been chasing Brother Blood for a while now. When Robin and the others finally catch up to the mad man, they discover he's playing with time. What happens when they wake up, in the Avatar's universe?
1. Chapter 1: The Meeting

**Disclaimer-** I don't own any Teen Titans related characters or Avatar: The Last Airbender characters. The purpose of this story is solely for my personal enjoyment and the enjoyment of various others, as well as to quell my vicious writer's block, which is the complete and utter opposite of a bundle of joy.

* * *

"Don't do it!" Cyborg bellowed as he readied his sonic cannon, aiming it loftily at the madman. He could feel the wind from the device rushing past his ears even if they were mechanical. The energy itself was palpable, surely a sign that this was wrong. Seeing their opponent was oblivious, Cyborg prepped himself for one last shout.

"Robin, he's gonna hit the switch!" The Boy Wonder leapt off the metal corpse of a robot seemingly soaring through the air before landing on the ground. He whipped out his Bo Staff and planted it firmly into the ground.

"Everybody, get ready for time distortions!" Robin shouted. His eyes searched desperately for Starfire who was fighting side by side with Raven, their efforts to reach Brother Blood's machine fruitless. He could faintly hear Beast Boy's voice in the background but as the device began to glow even brighter the thought was pushed violently into the back of his mind.

Vaguely he noted that Slade was still standing along with multiple of his minions. For once their nemesis was fighting with the team instead of against them. He too could understand the consequences of Blood's actions would have a rather direct effect on the world.

"Your messing with time! There's gonna be consequences!" Cyborg tried one last time to convince Blood to stop.

"Consequences? I can handle the consequences!" Blood maniacally countered as the device began to shine. As the light enveloped the area one last thought passed through Robin's mind.

"_Starfire?"_

* * *

"Aang, come out here!" Aang glanced up as he pulled on his shoes.

"I think you might want to see this! Everybody else is out here too." Katara responded with a pinch of worry entering her voice. That was all it took for the air bender to jump up and dash outside their temporary home in Ba Sing Se.

"Look, up there." Sokka pointed up into the once darkened night sky. Toph elbowed him lightly in the ribs to get his attention.

"I'm blind remember? You're going to have to tell me what's going on."

The sky was crimson red with a single large comet passing by the Earth. Then a brilliant blue hue slowly filled the space, with multiple shooting stars raining down on the world. Sokka let out a breath of relief.

"Hmm?" Aang didn't need to elaborate.

"I… kind of thought that it might have been Sozin's comet coming early." Sokka rubbed the back of his head in a sheepish manner.

"Guess not." Aang replied in a serious voice. It seemed that the entire group was nervously awaiting the arrival of that dreadful comet. While it was still months away, Aang still had to master fire bending and finish polishing his Earth bending before time ran out.

* * *

"Hello? Excuse me miss, are you feeling okay? Zuko, she's waking up! Is the tea almost ready?"

"Yes, Uncle." Zuko poked his head in through the doorway to check on their new… visitor in a sense.

"Ungh…" The girl at their feet attempted to sit up but fell back down. She settled with rubbing her head for a moment.

"Where am I?" If Iroh found himself the least bit surprised at how strong her voice came out when she should have been injured greatly he didn't show it.

"In our apartment. It is just me and my nephew living here." Iroh replied. "Here, have some tea." She tried to sit up again and this time was successful.

"Your body is healing fast." Iroh noted. "I'm sorry; I have not been a good host. I haven't even told you my name." He gave a good hearted chuckle and began talking again.

"My name is Iroh. My nephew here is-" Iroh was cut off as Zuko began talking. "My name is Lee." He offered her some tea.

"My name in your language translates as Star," She paused for a moment before continuing, "Fire."

"Such a beautiful name for a beautiful girl." She giggled slightly at Iroh's compliment.

"We found you lying in the street last night. You came falling from the sky out of nowhere." Zuko stared at Starfire. "What was that about?"

"My friends and I were pursuing a villain. We chased the man into a room when he pressed some buttons on a strange device. After that… there is nothing I can remember." Starfire finished the end of her sentence quietly as she racked her brain to remember. She stood up, rolling out of the cot gracefully.

"Thank you, friends, but I must be going now. My friends are probably very worried as to my whereabouts." She turned to leave, but the sound of Iroh's voice stopped her.

"You are welcome to come back anytime if you need a place to stay. It was very nice having you." He bowed slightly, indicating that he was finished.

Zuko stared at the door after she'd left. "She was dressed kind of… strangely."

* * *

"Is anybody out there? Hello? Hello?" Robin sighed. There he was, perched on the side of some unknown building. Alone. His communicator was working properly, but he noted with dismay that Starfire's was not. Cyborg was on emergency power, and wouldn't be able to talk until he was able to power up. Beast Boy had been the first to make contact with Robin until the main battery source fell out of the back of his communicator ten seconds into the conversation. Raven just wasn't responding at all. He sighed again and took in his surroundings.

He was in the middle of a city, but not the type he was used to. There were no skyscrapers, but buildings stretched on for miles. There was a giant wall that surrounded the city and he'd spotted three men in robes attempting to watch him secretly. Most of the buildings were only two or three stories high, save for what seemed to be a palace and a train station. The citizens of the city weren't wearing what he considered modern clothing. Rather they were clothed in plain clothes. The type you'd expect to see in history books explaining about ancient times. As he assessed his situation a sharp voice brought his attention back to reality.

"Give me all your money! Drop it, now!" He glanced over to his left and spotted a man with a knife in an alleyway, along with a woman at the other end of the blade. She had an expression of terror stitched across her face.

He reached back to find his bo staff attached to his belt. But for this fight he probably wouldn't need it. Sliding off the building he landed gracefully in the street, much to the surprise of many in the crowded walkway. In three short steps he was at the alleyway's entrance. He crept along seeing the man had his back to him, and then sprang suddenly from his position. In one sweep of his legs the man was down, and in two short hand movements the knife was gone. Conveniently someone had left some rope lying among the trash, and Robin used it to tie up the criminal.

He climbed up onto the top of another building and perched himself on the roof once again. He pulled out his communicator to try and contact his team again but to no avail.

"Drop everything you have!" Robin sighed as he glanced off in the direction the shout had come from. This was going to be a long day...

* * *

*_System Reboot Initiated. All vitals recovered. Reverting to main power core.*_

Cyborg groaned as he opened his eyes. "Oh man… how long was I out?" He raised his arm to check his scanners. "Let's see, how much power do I have?"

"Huh?" He checked his scanners again. "Energy must be different here, if I have enough power to work for an entire year. Oh well. No use in complaining about a Christmas basket." He sat up and looked around.

"Robin, you there?" He glanced down at the communicator built into his arm.

"Yeah." Robin's face appeared on the screen although it was moving pretty fast.

"Robin? What's going on? What are you doing? Where is everybody?"

"We've all been separated somehow. Something to do with that blue light back with Blood." Robin gritted his teeth as his fist connected with a masked face. "Right now I'm playing the hero in a city called Ba Sing Se. I've been trying to make contact-"

He stopped for a moment as he ducked to the ground to avoid another punch. "..With the others for a while now. Beast Boy's backup batteries for his communicator fell out, which means it was damaged somehow considering its not using the main power source. Raven's not responding. Starfire's communicator is busted. Where are you?"

"I don't know. The middle of nowhere I guess." Cyborg glanced around to take in his surroundings. "Dang, I really am in the middle of nowhere. There's a dirt road under my feet, and then just grass. That's the bad news. Good news is apparently power works differently here. My power cells have enough energy to function for a full year."

"Good. You should probably start walking. Try and find a town and ask for directions. A city like Ba Sing Se will be easier to find than the middle of nowhere."

"Alright. I'll report back when I find something. See ya."

"Wait, Cyborg. One more thing…" Robin paused for a moment before continuing. "Don't go around using that cannon of yours unless you need to. The people around here are kind of… old fashioned. If you find the others tell them not to use their powers if they can avoid it. Robin out."

* * *

"Ungh…" Raven emerged groggily from her trance. She was staring at the floor from a kneeling for some reason, which was odd considering she'd been unconscious. That was the first thing she'd noted. The second was that when she tried to move, she was constricted. The third was that her powers weren't working.

"Is the prisoner awake?" A sly manipulative voice emanated from the doorway.

"Yes ma'am. She just woke up." A younger voice this time, and an orderly by the tone and sound of it.

"_This can't be good…"_ Raven thought to herself. Anybody who chained strangers to a wall and also had orderlies usually could be considered a 'bad person'. The room itself was mostly barren, aside from the silk… poster of a black flame.

"Well hello my dear, how has your day been today?" A girl with black hair clad in some sort of red armor opened the door and took two steps inside. Raven might have replied, but spotting the smirk on the girl's face she opted to keep silent.

"Nothing to say about that? Would you mind telling me how you got here?" She spoke up again.

"Somebody seems to like the color red." Raven said shortly.

"You didn't answer my question."

"I'm chained up to a wall. Until you set me free I'm not answering." Raven replied, sending a death glare at the girl standing in front of her. The girl seemed taken aback by her calmness.

"I'm sorry. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Azula and I'm the princess of the Fire Nation. If you don't answer my questions I can make your stay here… unpleasant."

"My name is Raven. I don't know how I got here because I was unconscious the entire time." It wasn't the entire truth, but it wasn't really a lie either.

"I'll be back tomorrow with more questions. Don't make the mistake of not answering truthfully like you did today. The Fire Nation is the greatest world power, and don't you forget it." With that Azula gave one last smirk and spun on her heel to exit the room.

"_What happened to my communicator...?" _

* * *

"Hello? Are you okay?" Beast Boy opened his eyes to see what seemed to be a giant arrow obscuring his view.

"What do you mean is he okay?! Of course he's not okay! He's green! That's not normal!" A boy with a ponytail this time, throwing his hands up in the air was hollering at the blue arrow. A closer observation revealed that the blue arrow was tattooed to a bald head.

"What happened?" Beast Boy interjected groggily. He sat up to see they were in a single floor house. From the looks of it, it was probably somewhat expensive.

"Umm… why are you green?" The ponytail boy asked.

"Because I'm Beast Boy." He replied. He wasn't going to elaborate on his past (yeah, I know about the monkey) to complete strangers.

"Beast Boy…? That's a different name." A girl clad in blue clothing that Beast Boy could only describe as resembling a robe walked in the room with a bowl of water.

"I'm Aang. That's Sokka," The blue arrow boy pointed to the ponytail boy, "And that's Katara." He pointed at the girl in the blue. "Toph is in the other room. You'll meet her later."

"Where did you come from? We were walking in the street to come back home when you just dropped out of the sky. But you weren't high up at all, you just popped out of nowhere." Sokka stared at him suspiciously.

"I don't know exactly. Where am I? Wait a minute, where's my communicator?" Beast Boy's voice changed into one of alarm.

"What, you mean this thing?" Sokka held up a small yellow-orange device. "This is a communicator?" Seeing Beast Boy's nod he tossed it to him.

"How does it work?" Aang asked, a smile plastered over his face.

"I don't know exactly. My friend Cyborg built it along with my friend Robin."

"Robin and Cyborg… these guys have weird names…" Sokka whispered to Aang.

"Well what does it do?" Katara asked.

"It's kind of like a phone, but better." Beast Boy replied proudly.

"A phone? What's that?" She asked.

"You don't know what a phone is? How do you guys communicate with people who are far away?"

"We used hawks and others birds, or we just use the mail. Runners usually ride animals or run on foot to reach farther places if you can't afford a messenger hawk." Sokka replied. Seeing Beast Boy's eyebrows rise he continued. "What, never heard of a messenger hawk before?"

"Hold up. Do you know what cars are?"

"Nope." Aang answered. "But we'll listen if you want to tell us."

"Uh… hold on. Did you find any cylinder like things on the ground? Before I was knocked unconscious or whatever I dropped my backup batteries for my communicator. If you can get me them I can show you how it works."

"Sure. Is this it?" Katara held up two yellow and black batteries with the word emergency slapped onto the front.

"Yeah." Beast Boy got up and inserted the backup batteries.

"Alright I think I… got it!" He flipped it open and the screen slowly flickered to life. "Robin? Hello?"

After a moment Robin's face appeared on the screen. "Beast Boy? Is that you?" Beast Boy ignored the bewildered stares of the others in the room.

"Yeah. Where are we?"

"Wait a minute… activate your S.O.S beacon. We may be on backup power but backup power works for a short range." Robin said.

"Alright. But I'm not sure this is gonna-" Beast Boy was cut off by Robin's swift interjection. "It's up. I got your signal. Stay there, I'm on my way. By the way, the city's called Ba Sing Se. Glad to see you made some new friends because we might be staying for a while."

* * *

**End of chapter 1. Hoped you like it, and please review.**

**In other words here are some beautiful stories I've been reading as well as a side note. The next chapter gets better, trust me. It clocks in at about 3,500 words. Yeah, I've written it already. My writers block was longer than I thought.**

_Perfect Apprentice_ by Templar of Honor

_The Depth of Garfield Logan's Mind_ by Loveeo

_Leap Thru Time _by Moonstar 11

_Seeing a New Light _by PrincessRockstar1

**Eh I'm not truly an adult yet, (thankfully) but this next part is purely because I can.**

**-Mr Bon.**


	2. Chapter 2: The Reunion

**Second Chapter's up.** **Before I start however, let me reply to some reviews I've gotten. **

**Athena Fenton**- You're right about Sokka being more freaked out. I had some dialogue set up, but deleted it and never got around to rewriting it. You'll see some more of that in chapter 3. As for Cyborg, I forget the episode name, but there was one where he was teleported 3000 years into the past. Or maybe it was 5000. But anyway, in the episode they just assumed it was some type of freaky armor. I'm going with the same thing here, as the avatar's friends have seen weirder.

**IBleedDukeBlue**- Glad you liked it. Thanks for reading and reviewing.

**beargeek15**- I agree with the imagery thing. But I wrote this chapter before I even posted the first one, and I really don't feel like changing this up. So if the imagery still needs improvement, you'll probably have to wait until the third chapter. Which is almost completed by the time of writing this.

**AlsoSprachOdin**- I'm thinking of giving them bending abilities here, but only one or two of the team. Starfire will be able to use her powers soon, and so will Beast Boy. I'm unsure about Raven. For your first sentence, that's exactly why I wrote this. I wanted to see a crossover that didn't stop after 3,000 words where the titans came to the avatar's world. The others either involved Terra (I liked the one where Terra replaced Toph, but sadly I think its discontinued) or the avatar going to the titans world. And then there was that one with the OC character, but that had too much cursing for my liking. So then I decided to try and do things my way. This is the result.

* * *

Robin leapt from rooftop to rooftop, avoiding the sweltering crowds below as he followed the beacon to Beast Boy's location. It was easy to tell when he was getting closer, as the changeling was in the richer part of the city. That particular section had the smaller crowds, and was still a long way off. He glanced down for a second as his communicator began to buzz, and missed his jump. As he twisted and fell through the air he reached out wildly and grasped a clothesline.

"Robin, I got directions. I've been heading the wrong way all this time! Uh… is this a bad time?" Cyborg's voice came through, obviously having a good time.

"Cyborg? You almost got me killed!"

"Sorry man." He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Did you contact Beast Boy yet? His communicator's working again and I'm tracking him down now." Robin hoisted himself up back onto the green roof of a two story building.

"No, I'll contact him in a sec. I found out more on why the energy works differently here though. Something to do with the air. There are a lot less chronotons samples in the atmosphere too. This whole place is just… weird."

"I'll call you later, Cyborg. I need to find Beast Boy before sundown and he's a long ways off. I've got at least six more miles of buildings to cover before I even reach his district."

"Alright. Just remember, if there's trouble, you know who to call." With that closed his communicator.

"_Now I've just got to find Beast Boy before nightfall…"_ Robin looked up at the setting sun. But even with the dying day, the crowds seemed as tightly packed as ever. He prepared himself to return to his rooftop gymnastics when suddenly out of the alleyway two hands composed of rock shot out and pinned his legs to the roof.

"What the..?" Robin almost collided with the roof in the ensuing fall, but his bonds prevented him from slipping all the way. He whipped out a birdarang and sliced one foot free as two figures clad in green and black robes seemingly flew up the sides of the building with surprising speed. As the first approached him with an intention of knocking him out with one blow to the head, he ducked to avoid the attack with a second to spare. Pushing upwards with what momentum he could muster he knocked the man off the roof.

The second had simply stood back to watch the encounter, and smirked as his partner was launched from their battlefield. "You are under arrest for disturbing the peace of Ba Sing Se. Your… acrobatics have spurred the community into speaking about the war. There is no war in Ba Sing Se…" He raised his hand and jabbed his fingers out, and Robin lurched back at the last second to avoid a jagged rock shot directly at his head.

"Who are you!?" Robin reached for another birdarang to cut himself fully free, but found himself blown backwards from the impact of another airborne rock fist. As he struggled to stay conscious he vaguely heard the screams of the crowds as various shingles rained down from the roof. All his attention was focused on the man who stood over him with one more fist poised and aimed straight at his chest.

"We are the Dai Li. There is no war in Ba Sing Se." He punched forward, and Robin blacked out.

* * *

"Friends, is it possible that I may lodge here for the night? I can not seem to locate my friends as this city is rather large, and it is not possible for my people to live without food."

"You are welcome here anytime. Please, come in." Iroh held the door open and motioned for Starfire to enter the apartment.

"I believe the expression is... thanks." (Not gonna elaborate much, but on Starfire's part while she was out searching for the others she discovered that they were in an alternate universe or something. However I choose to describe it later in the story. The manner of speech is a bit different from their universe.)

"Uh…" Zuko had a puzzled expression glued onto his face.

"The manner of speech is very different from the place from which I have come." Starfire replied in a downcast voice. She'd hoped to find at least a clue as to where they were. Something told her they were nearby, something drew her to stay in the city.

"Yeah, we kind of noticed." Zuko returned to trying to use the spark rocks to heat the tea kettle.

"Do not mind my nephew. He is struggling with his inner self right now, so please excuse his rudeness." Starfire nodded. They chatted idly for a while until sometime after dinner, most of the questions either revolving around Starfire and her friends, or Starfire's questions about Ba Sing Se. When asked the other titans she refrained from speaking of their powers. Their conversation came to a halt when a knock resounded at the door.

"Zuko, would you mind getting that?" Iroh asked his nephew.

Zuko groaned and heaved himself out of his cot. He slipped past Starfire and opened the door.

"Here you are sir." A messenger had been at the door, and Zuko opened the letter as he closed the door. After a moment his mouth dropped open, and then slowly morphed into a smile.

"What is it?" Iroh asked.

"Did something terrible happen?" Starfire asked.

"Uncle, it says here we've been invited to appear before the Earth King tomorrow to serve him some tea!" Zuko stared at the letter in disbelief.

"That is most wonderful!" Starfire exclaimed.

"She's right; this has been a good day." Iroh closed his eyes for a second, savoring the moment.

* * *

**(Bear with me here. I don't have any way to explain this but let's just say BB went with Sokka during ****The Crossroads of Destiny**** episodes. Anything else I've forgotten with the rest of the Gaang just forget about it. I'm fully aware that Zuko and Iroh didn't get the message in the middle of the night inviting them to serve tea to the Earth King.)**

* * *

**  
**Sokka looked up as he moved to join the men in their raid. With a pang of sadness he noticed Appa's figure soaring down, coupled with the stretched out grunt Appa always gave. As Appa approached the groan Beast Boy walked over to join them. Beast Boy caught the grimace on Aang's face as he landed. The next words he could tell wouldn't be good.

"Katara's in trouble." Beast Boy didn't waste a moment. Before Sokka was done talking, he'd scrambled up on top of Appa.

"Let's go."

* * *

Starfire plopped herself down in a chair and rested her head on the back. Her face held a downcast expression and she felt her shoulders sag once again. For two days she'd tried to locate the rest of her team, but to no avail. Twice she thought she'd seen Beast Boy but upon further investigation it was revealed that a boy had painted his face green for money. Twice. She'd come back for a snack as hunger overtook her. Both of her hosts had left a couple of hours earlier to serve tea to the Earth King, of whom she had not the slightest notion about. Starfire walked over to the window and rested her elbows on the windowsill as she gazed outside, taking in the view of the street.

She let the sounds of the voices and birds chirping overwhelm her for a moment, and smiled as the sunlight washed over her face. Her first reason to smile all day, aside from being happy for the prestigious position her hosts had achieved for the day. Chances were she'd have found her friends if she took to the skies, but like her decision to stay inside the city, something kept her from using her powers. Flight obviously wasn't all that common around here, and neither were superheroes.

Zuko had explained earthbending to her the previous night after Iroh had fallen asleep, so when she first witnessed it Starfire experienced a dulled surprise. She was yanked from her thoughts suddenly by the sound of the door opening roughly. She spun around with her fists raised to meet the threat, only to spot Iroh raising his hands in front of his chest.

"It's only me." Iroh said slowly. "My nephew has been captured. I fear we will have to flee the city after I break him out. You may choose either to come with me to rescue my nephew, or to move on and continue searching for your friends."

"I can not abandon my new friends in your time of need. I will assist you in your quest." Starfire said firmly.

"Thank you." Iroh inclined his head slightly in thanks. "But there is a stop we must make first. There are some people in this city that can help us."

* * *

"The Kyoshi Warriors aren't here." Sokka said with surprise.

"I told you Katara's in danger." Aang slapped a hand onto his forehead. "We need to go back and talk to the Earth King again."

"Pssh. They're probably just off doing girl stuff like getting their hair done. You know Katara likes that kind of thing." Sokka brushed Aang's misgivings away lightly.

"Maybe they are in danger. I haven't been getting the safest feeling in this city." Beast Boy suggested as he examined a vase.

"Wait. There's someone at the door." Toph had her back turned, but using earth bending she could easily feel the vibrations of almost everything. It was almost like she had three hundred and sixty degree vision. "Actually, I know who it is. It's an old friend of mine." She walked over to slide open the double door.

"Hello Iroh." Toph smiled, ignoring the expressions of shock she felt form on Aang and Sokka's faces.

"You know him!??!" Sokka exclaimed.

"Please, I need your help." Iroh stepped inside. "My nephew has been captured and the Earth King is in danger."

"A dangerous lady who goes by Azula is in control of the Dai Li. They are planning a coup." Starfire interjected. Seeing Beast Boy her faced formed into a smile, bigger than Beast Boy's matching grin. "Beast Boy!" She pulled him into a bear hug.

"Umm… who is she?" Sokka asked as Starfire ran over to the changeling.

"Azula? Here?" Toph asked with the alarm in her voice evident.

"I brought somebody along who can help us find your friend, and my nephew." Iroh motioned for them to follow. Toph was the first outside aside from Iroh and immediately brought up two shelves of earth to further encase the captured Dai Li agent in rock.

"Have you made contact with Robin yet?" Starfire asked Beast Boy.

"Yeah. But I think something happened to him. His communicator's been smashed. Either that or he disabled it somehow." Beast Boy replied unsteadily. "But don't worry Star," He continued, seeing the look of worry cross her face, "He's probably okay. Robin can take care of himself."

"I know he will be alright. He must be okay!" Starfire raised her voice as she finished the last bit of her sentence.

"If he has disappeared, he might be being held with the other two we are searching for. We can help you find your friend." Iroh stepped back inside, and motioned for them to follow.

"Here's the plan." Sokka began. "Toph, Beast Boy, Starfire, and I will head over to warn the Earth King, while Aang and Iroh head over to rescue the Katara and the fire bending jerk. No offense."

"None taken." Iroh chuckled.

* * *

"The coup is happening right now! Get down!" Sokka hissed as he grabbed Beast Boy and whipped him behind a pillar. Toph did the same with Starfire. They peered out from around the pillar to see two Dai Li agents hanging on pillars up ahead, and a general walking down the palace entrance grand steps. As he walked handcuffs appear seemed to shoot out of nowhere and whip him up into the shadows.

"Should we assist?" Starfire whispered tentatively.

"No. We need to get to the Earth King before it's too late." Sokka replied. He waited a moment longer, and then motioned for the others to move. As they weaved their way in through the palace they encountered two more Dai Li agents, but Toph trapped them before they were able to even shout. As they entered the room where the king and Bosco (the bear) were being held Toph encased Ty Lee's feet and hands in rock so she couldn't move.

Toph brought up a rock and held it out in front of her threateningly, but was surprised to see Mai simply shrug her shoulders and roll her eyes. "Just take them away from here." She said in a bored voice. Sokka shrugged his shoulders and the Earth King and the bear swiftly walked over.

"I just hope Aang and Katara are okay. Come on; let's meet back up with the invasion force like we planned."

* * *

"Ungh…" Robin groaned and rolled over. He attempt to raise himself to his feet and vaguely felt hands hoisting him up.

"Hey, are you okay?" A boy's voice first. This helped Robin to clear his head, and he now decided to look at his surroundings. There seemed to be a lot of green crystals. Crystals everywhere and they were underground.

"Hang on, you're hurt." A girl's voice this time. A pair of hands gripped his head, and in a moment the throbbing in his head ceased.

"Where am I? And who are you?" Robin asked, not dropping his guard quite yet even after seeing their warm expressions.

"Underground. Under the royal palace of Ba Sing Se. The Dai Li got to you. They're earth benders in robes, kind of like secret agents for the Earth Kingdom." The girl explained. "I'm Katara by the way."

"My name is Zuko." The boy said. If Robin was surprised to see the scar on his face, he made sure he didn't show it.

"You can call me Robin. This earth bending… do either of you know how to use it? Robin asked, even though he already guessed the answer.

"No. I'm a fire bender." Zuko said shortly.

"And I'm a water bender." Katara replied.

"Is there any way out of here?" Robin asked.

"I don't think so." Katara raised her eyebrow for a moment.

"We haven't really checked. But if the Dai Li have thrown us down here in prison we probably can't escape." Zuko elaborated for her.

"Then maybe we should. I've got a feeling that with a 'prison cell' this large there's got to be something they missed." Robin raised a grappling hook and grinned. He spun suddenly as a small section of the wall next to them seemed to cave in. He relaxed as through the smoke and debris emerged a bald boy and an old man.

"Aang!" Katara rushed forward to hug the bald headed boy who must be Aang.

"Zuko!" The old man enveloped Zuko in a bear hug. "Uncle. Good to see you again."

Robin noticed that Zuko opened his eyes while still being hugged by the man. He was glaring at the monk over the man's shoulder, and Aang was doing likewise over Katara's shoulder.

"_They must have history…"_ Robin thought to himself.

"Uncle, what are you doing here with the avatar?!" Zuko demanded suddenly.

"Saving you, that's what." Aang replied, the hostility clear in his voice.

"Grrr!" Zuko lunged forward, only for his uncle to reach out in front of him to stop him. "Aang, you go back up and meet your friends. Zuko, the time has come for us to talk about you. You are reaching the crossroads of destiny. The time has come for you to choose. For you to choose good."

"Thank you, Iroh." Aang inclined his head and turned to walk farther off into the caverns.

"Are you Robin?" Iroh looked at the Boy Wonder.

"Um… yeah." Robin replied, bewildered on how Iroh could've known his name.

"Your friends are awaiting your return along with the Avatar's friends. Go with Aang and Katara if you want to see them again." Robin nodded.

As he followed Aang and Katara through the caverns they came to what seemed to be a set of hot springs or something of that sort. Before them lay two pools of water as well as an underground waterfall. He almost enjoyed it, if not for the feeling that someone was watching them. As a rock fell from the top of the cave his suspicions were confirmed.

"Wait." Robin held his hand up. "We're being watched."

"Hello Avatar." A sharp voice echoed in the caverns, and the trio turned to see Azula stalking towards them.

"Azula. Give it up, you can't win! There's three of us, and one of you." Aang shouted as he readied his staff.

"Three? I counted four." Azula chuckled to herself as Zuko ran up parallel to Azula, fists raised in a threatening position. "Brother."

"Azula." Zuko replied.

"Zuko, I've plotted every move of this day carefully. In the end, a victory all comes down to your decision. Victory rests in you. I can't win this without you. You can choose to help the avatar, and betray your country. Or you can choose to fight with me, and together we will destroy him. Your honor will be restored, and father will welcome you home with open arms." Azula's voice changed into a manipulative tone. Robin noted with dismay that Zuko didn't hear the difference. He observed as Zuko closed his eyes and took a deep breath and then… spun and punched his fists out angrily in Aang's direction.

Robin stepped back as three fire blasts dissipated next to the avatar in quick succession. Aang's expression changed to one of rage and he charged, faster than anyone Robin had ever seen before except for Kid Flash. Azula shot out a burst of blue fire at Katara, who parried using the water.

"_So this is water bending and fire bending…" _Robin thought to himself. _"Should I get involved in this? Aang and Katara can take me to the others…" _In a heartbeat after that thought Robin had made his decision. But as he glanced either way to see who needed his help more, his opponent was decided for him. Two hands made of rock shot out of the darkness of the caverns and Robin ducked with a second to spare. Three Dai Li agents emerged from the depths of the cave and Robin assumed a fighting stance.

"_They won't be expecting an explosive disc, but once they see it they'll be wary. I'll have to make this quick and fast." _Robin raised his hands above his head as if giving in. As the Dai Li agents approached him the battle raged on behind them. When they were only a few feet away and prepared to cuff him again, he lashed out suddenly let a disc loose, freezing two of the agents to the bone.

The third leapt backwards immediately. He brought up a boulder and sent it flying at Robin. Robin easily sidestepped the projectile and charged his opponent. A birdarang forced the agent on defense, and gave Robin just enough time to deliver a flying kick to his face.

The man recovered being knocked a couple of feet backwards and used the rocks to propel himself into the air, soaring several feet above Robin. He sent rock molds of his fingers propelling down, similar to a hail of bullets, straight for the Boy Wonder. He whipped out his Bo Staff to block the deadly rain, spinning it rapidly to intercept the projectiles.

Suddenly the fighting intensified. Instead of one opponent, Robin found himself faced with ten. A quick glance around told him the other two found themselves in the same position. Another glance gave him a count of about fifty agents, not to mention Zuko and Azula. Thinking quickly he reached for his belt to drop two smoke bombs to cover his escape. Aiming a grappling hook upwards Robin shot for ceiling of the cave as the bewildered agents prowled the smoke for his whereabouts.

Robin gazed across the battlefield, and gasped at what he saw. Aang began float, the arrow tattoos all across his body glowing brightly. As he floated up the energy in the air was palpable. Then, right when the energy reached its zenith, a flash of light hit Aang. Robin was taken by another bout of surprise as Aang fell through the air he realized the girl named Azula had shot a blast of lightning, another ability of the fire benders for him to tuck away in his mind.

Katara used her water bending to create a gushing wave to reach Aang before he hit the ground. Robin guessed it was safe to slide back down to the ground as the wave had temporarily taken out their opponents.

"Aang!" Katara shouted, grief clouding her voice.

"We need to go!" Robin yelled. Katara looked up as tears formed in her eyes. "He's still alive for the moment. If we leave now we might get away." Katara didn't seem to hear him.

"Go!" The strong firm voice of Iroh commanded them. They both glanced back to see the old man approach them.

"I will hold them off for as long as I can. The boy is right, you must leave now!" Iroh shouted again. Katara finally was brought back to her senses and nodded. Robin shot a grappling hook up to the top of the waterfall. Katara used water bending to carry Aang and herself up as more tears fell from her eyes, and she hoped as she heard Iroh's furious fire bending, that there would be just enough spirit water left to heal Aang's injury.

* * *

**End of second chapter. Once again excuse me if I skewer the timeline of the avatar a little bit. Sometimes I will skewer it intentionally, as previously mentioned to advance the plot without too much complication. At other times I will skewer it unintentionally just cause. I'm aware I skipped Toph and Sokka getting captured **

**My writers block has lifted, but I'm not abandoning this story as I've had a lot of fun writing it so far. But my other story, **_An Unusual Traitor_**, won't be abandoned either. I promised two updates, so I'm going to be typing like a mad man to pump them out without rushing them. See you next time. **


	3. Chapter 3: The Escape

**Chapter 3. I'm going to insert this now: The next chapter does feature Cyborg and Raven. Though it might seem poorly cut because originally I was going to make two separate chapters, but now there's only one. So I ended up just find a place to randomly insert the Cyborg and Raven sections of the chapter. Now I'll reply to those review(s). **

**Eikyuu the Jellykage****- **Glad you liked the story. Thanks for reading and reviewing.

**PinkPanther123****- **I'm glad I finally was able to think of a way to do this. Thanks for reading too.

* * *

"Augh!" One final shout was quelled by the water as yet another body collided with the freezing substance. Beast Boy grinned triumphantly as two men brushed past him to check if the cargo hold was clear. They were finally victorious in their battle for a Fire Navy ship. The plan had changed from its original course to invade the Fire Nation alongside the Earth Kingdom to one of a smaller scale. The Avatar had been hurt badly, Beast Boy knew. The water benders agreed with the kids who'd taken the changeling in to invade the Fire Nation with a ragtag group of their friends they'd met around the world. Before the raid Robin had made sure they knew not to expose their powers.

"Robin! It is most wonderful to see you again." Starfire said again. She engulfed him in another hug and he blushed deeply. "Hey… Starfire. Good to see you again too."

"Robin!" Beast Boy shouted. He slipped over to the bow of the ship where the two were standing to give him a high five.

"Beast Boy." Robin smiled and returned the gesture.

"Is he alive?" Hakota asked in a low voice. He squinted at the found on Aang's back as Katara and Sokka carried him gently down into the lower decks.

"Barely. The spirit water is the only thing keeping him alive." Katara replied gravely. She focused her attention on inserting a bit more of the water into the wound again as he convulsed for the fourth time. "If this keeps up I'm going to run out of spirit water soon."

"He'll make it, Katara. He's the avatar; he does that kind of thing." Sokka reassured his sister quietly.

"I hope your right…" Katara trailed off, not bothering to finish her sentence. "Come on; let's find him a good place to rest."

* * *

**3 Weeks Later…**

Loud snoring filled the air. The obnoxious sound emanated from a certain changeling lounging lazily on a blanket he'd spread out on the deck under light of the fading day. He jumped up as the door to the lower decks clanked open, almost yanked from its hinges. He spun around to see Aang hobbling out as fast as was possible with his injuries. In short, a turtle could've outrun him.

"Twinkle Toes! That must be you!" Toph was the first to notice it was Aang causing the commotion.

"Aang!" Katara and Sokka shouted in unison. They ran over to greet their friend. Beast Boy watched as they spoke for a second, and then Aang lost consciousness again. Katara caught him before he hit the ground.

"Whoa! Is he gonna be okay?" Beast Boy asked.

"I think so. He keeps falling in and out of consciousness. But he was awake for a while then so I shouldn't have to use any more spirit water." Katara replied.

"That's good. Didn't you just run out of that stuff?" Toph asked.

"Yep, she did." Sokka said, earning him a well deserved glare from Katara. They all looked down as Aang stirred again, blinking his eyes slowly. He sat up and sent Hakota a grateful smile as he draped a blanket over his shoulders. Katara sat down across from him.

"Why are we on a Fire Nation ship?" Aang asked with an unsteady voice, "Why is everyone dressed this way?" Motioning to himself he continued. "And why am I the only one completely out of it?"

"You need to take it easy okay. You got hurt pretty bad." Katara placed a hand on his shoulder. "I like your hair." She dropped her hand back down to her lap.

"I have hair?!" Aang groped over his head for a moment. "How long was I out?" He demanded.

"You've been out for a while." Beast Boy interjected as he slipped past the two to enter the lower deck.

"A couple weeks." Katara glared at Beast Boy as he passed.

"Everything okay?" Hakota walked over.

"We're fine, dad." Katara looked away as she narrowed her eyes.

"I'm Hakota, Katara and Sokka's father."

* * *

"Should not we be searching for the others?" Starfire asked. The titans' trio was sitting in Robin and Beast Boy's quarters. There was barely enough room to go around, so they had to share.

"The next move we make has to be plotted out carefully. Cyborg is working on getting his tracking device up and running. Because of the chronoton level in the air, time runs slower in a sense. In other words, he's got a lot of power, and so do our communicators. He should be able to find us before it runs out." Robin replied from the armchair he was situated in.

"So… we can count him as being found, right?" Beast Boy asked.

"Yeah. Now all we need to do is find Raven." Robin said in a preoccupied tone.

"I think…" Starfire thought for a moment before continuing, "These people we are traveling with have helped us to find each other so far. We should continue to travel with them for a little while longer."

"Beast Boy?" Robin raised an eyebrow.

"I agree with Starfire. If it wasn't for them we'd never have found each other. Maybe they'll lead us to Raven." The changeling replied from his position on the floor.

"So it's settled. We stay, for now." Robin raised himself up from the chair. "Let's get some fresh air."

* * *

"What?! The whole world thinks I'm dead? That's not good news; that's terrible!" They heard Aang's distressed voice before they opened the door onto the top deck.

"No, that's great! It means the Fire Nation won't be hunting us anymore." Sokka replied with a huge grin on his face.

"No, no no. You have no idea." Aang threw his hands up and shut his eyes for a second. "This is so messed up."

A horn sounding in the distance caught everyone's attention on deck. A Fire Nation ship was approaching from the front. Robin curled a hand into a fist and stepped out onto the deck.

"I'll handle this. The Avatar is back." Aang whipped out his staff, twirling it before smacking it down to morph it into his glider. He gritted his teeth from the energy he'd exerted to carry out the motion, and prepped himself for takeoff.

"Aang, wait! Remember, they don't know we're not Fire Nation.." Katara reached out a hand to stop him.

"Everyone just stay calm." Hakota ordered. "Bato and I will take care of this."

Everybody who wasn't in uniform cleared off the deck. Aang, Toph, Sokka, Katara, and Starfire all crouched beneath the hatch to the lower decks, while Beast Boy, The Duke, and Robin hid in the doorway to the control room.

"I hate not being able to do anything…" Aang grumbled.

"Hopefully you won't need to." Toph replied as they watched the fire benders board their ship.

"Who are you?" Aang asked with a surprised tone as he noticed Starfire with them.

"That's Starfire." Sokka hissed.

"I am very pleased to meet you, new friend." Starfire smiled, and continued observing the exchange with anticipation. The boarding party consisted of three men. Two were wearing skull helmets. The one leading the party across the narrow bridge that extended from the other ship was a bearded man with no helmet. Obviously the one in charge.

"Commander, why are you off course?" The bearded man addressed Hakota as the water tribe chief bowed politely. "All western fleet ships are supposed to be moving toward Ba Sing Se to support the occupation."

"Actually we're from the eastern fleet." Hakota replied, thinking fast. "We have orders to deliver some cargo."

"Ah… eastern fleet. Well, nice of admiral Chan to let us known he was sending a ship our way."

"I'm sure admiral Chan meant no disrespect, sir." Hakota replied.

"I mean, how hard is it to write a quick note and send a hawk our way?" The bearded man continued.

"Next time we'll send two hawks to make sure you get the message." Hakota replied. Bato and Hakota bowed and turned to return to their "duties". Starfire watched as one of the two fire benders leaned in and whispered something to the man in the lead. They started to walk slowly across the bridge, and stopped suddenly as Toph sprang out of her hiding place.

"They know!" She shouted as she gripped the metal deck. A second later due to Toph's metal bending the bridge for the boarding party was ripped off its hinges, and the men themselves were sent plunging into the freezing depths below. Katara was right behind her, creating a wave to separate the vessels. Their ship sped off as the other vessel gave pursuit.

Robin took a four second assessment of the battle. The enemy ship had begun to send flaming rocks at their vessel, and most were either being blocked or narrowly missing. Two men appeared to man two more catapults, prompting Robin to run below deck to where he would be needed most.

"Cyborg!" Robin flipped open his communicator as he bolted down the halls. After a moment their mechanical wizard appeared. "Robin? What's up?"

"I'm gonna need your help." He stumbled forward as the ship lurched from the impact of a flaming rock. Robin could hear the rushing of the water as the hull was breached.

"Alright, what do you need?" Cyborg asked. Robin dashed past a doorway, and then ran back through. "I'm in the engine room of some steam operated ship or something. Don't know what it runs on, but it's gonna need some fixing if we want to stay afloat."

"What do you got?"

"Two valves that read 934-1. I remember hearing that somewhere back in the tower. One's busted. The other I need to know what to do with."

"How bad is it busted?" Cyborg asked. He winced as Robin tilted the communicator to show a set of pipes and a twisted valve. "Alright, you'll need to get rid of the busted valve. Then you're gonna have to improvise. For the one that's not busted, twist it counter clockwise twice, and then push it in. You should hear a whooshing sound.

"Alright. Robin raised his leg and kicked off the busted valve, and followed Cyborg's directions.

"_Now all I have to do is find something to improvise with. But what?"_

* * *

"Starfire!" Beast Boy shouted to get her attention. They watched as rocks and boulders flew between the two ships, until a harpoon gun was mounted on the other side. She nodded and also ran to the lower decks. She pelted by another crew member right as a harpoon pierced through the hull, and flood water rushed in. The man continued running to assist in the battle up top leaving Starfire to deal with the crisis at hand. She reached forward, gripping both ends of the breach. Using her strength she closed it and sealed the breach with her star bolts. After glancing around to make sure no one had seen her super powered display she continued on her hunt for any other breaches.

Beast Boy meanwhile was up on deck. Another rock arched up in the air, and Hakota was dragging an injured water bender to cover. As the rock arched down Beast Boy leapt from his feet, and knocked the two water benders out of the way of the flaming projectile. He grinned as Hakota sent him a grateful glance.

"Not entirely useless, am I?"

"I'm gonna give us some cover!" Katara shouted. She ran over to the edge of the ship and raised her hands above her head. Fog swiftly enveloped the ships and they lurched forward one again to attempt to outrun the other vessel.

"…Just let us handle this." Sokka explained to Aang as he coaxed the air bender back into remaining a secret. Narrowing his eyes Aang nodded and returned to cover. The ships emerged from the fog side by side. Beast Boy groaned at the sight of it. Suddenly the ocean water shook and… a giant sea serpent emerged from its depths. A low growl emanated from its throat and it lunged for their ship. It was interrupted mid-lunge by a rock launched from the Fire Nation ship. It turned its attention towards the enemy vessel, and Beast Boy sighed with relief, relaxing himself from his morphing stance. Thankfully he wasn't forced to reveal his powers as the serpent constricted the enemy vessel, allowing them to escape.

"Thank you the universe." Sokka grinned. As they watch the Fire Nation ship slowly fade from sight. Down below deck Robin had finally found something to replace the valve after searching through four rooms. Starfire had successfully closed and sealed three breaches to the point where it was unnoticeable aside from faint heat marks.

* * *

"So…why are you green again?" Sokka asked Beast Boy for the fourth time as they gulped down their soup. It was dark already, all traces of sunlight purged from the sky. Clouds slowly drifted over them foreshadowing an approaching storm. They were gathered out on the top deck finishing dinner and waiting for Aang to come out.

"Well… I can't really tell you that right now. But maybe later." Beast Boy shook his head as a look of sorrow crossed his face for a moment before it brightened.

"Zuko is not a good person after all?" Starfire asked. The time she'd spent with him and Iroh in Ba Sing Se seemed so long ago, yet she could still remember how confused and hurt he was on the inside. She could hardly believe he'd tried to burn down Kyoshi village and hunted the avatar across the world.

"Not even a little bit. He tries to make you think he's a good person on the inside, but then when you finally believe it he stabs you in the back." Katara said in a low voice. The anger she felt was almost palpable.

"Where's Aang going anyway?" Robin sat down in the circle with a bowl in hand.

"Huh?" Toph, Katara, and Sokka all turned their heads.

"He left on his glider about an hour ago. I just wanted to know where he's going. Isn't he supposed to be a secret?" Sokka and Katara exchanged glances. Appa growled and stretched out his legs.

"We need to go after him. He's not supposed to be out right now." Toph said as she rose to her feet.

"Come on, we'll take Appa and start searching." Sokka motioned for them to follow.

"Can I help?" Beast Boy asked. Seeing their skeptical looks he continued. "Come on, you know I can see farther than any of you."

"He's right. We barely avoided those two other fire nation ships when we were leaving Ba Sing Se. Without him we'd be captured by now." Katara said.

"Or worse." Sokka interjected, receiving a glare from his sister.

"Wait a minute. If he goes, we're coming too." Robin's voice was firm as he stepped towards Appa.

"Appa won't be able to support us all at once. Well, he might. But we're gonna have to cut down on our load a little." Katara said.

"If we go after Aang now, we won't be able to find our way back to the invasion force without risking being discovered. It'll be hard work and we'll have to trudge straight through Fire Nation territory." Sokka said.

"You sure you can handle it?" Toph asked with a skeptical voice.

"You don't know what we can handle." Beast Boy gave the three a thumbs up.

"Is everything all right?" Hakota called. Katara ran over to him and Sokka motioned for the group to follow him over and up onto Appa. They watched as Katara exchanged a couple of words with her father, and cried for a moment. He gave a solemn nod and she walked slowly back over to Appa.

"Let's go." Sokka said. "Yip yip." Appa pushed forward and leapt into the air. Beast Boy was sitting next to Sokka on Appa's neck, while everybody else was in the saddle on his back. He struggled and squinted to peer through the stormy weather as they flew. After about ten minutes of flight a lightning bolt lit up the sky.

"Anything yet?" Sokka shouted over the roar of the wind.

"Nope!" The reply came in almost perfect unison from everyone in the search party.

"Wait, I think I see something!" Beast Boy pointed off to their left as another lightning bolt granted them a few more seconds of sight. A crushed log emerged from the water.

"Not him. Keep moving!" Katara shouted. They flew on longer, until the new day dawned.

"There!" Beast Boy yelled again. By this time the storm had quelled considerably, and was all but over. His finger was pointed towards a small island that seemed to have a small volcano. Or, small by comparison to the other ones the titans had seen.

Katara's defeated expression changed to that of a hopeful one. The volcano had not caught her attention, a boy on the shore had. Aang was lying there unconscious, but obviously alive. "Sokka, take us down!" Appa landed nearby Aang's body, and Katara and Sokka were the first off his back.

"Aang!" Katara shouted. Momo jumped onto his face and gave him an encouraging lick.

"Ungh…" Aang groaned, and stirred once again. He opened his eyes and raised himself up into a sitting position.

"You're alright!" Toph grinned as she ran over to join them. Robin, Starfire, and Beast Boy respectfully chose to keep their distance.

"We can't make it back to the invasion force now." Robin said quietly.

"Then we will help our new friends continue their journey until this Day of Black Sun." Starfire said firmly. Seeing Beast Boy's downcast expression she continued. "Do not fret Beast Boy. We have found each other so far, and with their help I feel that Raven is not out of reach." She smiled and took both of their hands. They stood side by side and watched as the group in front of them embraced Aang tightly, until Aang motioned for them to join in the motion from over Katara's shoulder.

"We've been through so much and yet there's still so much to do. I'm supposed to save the world..." Aang looked at the ground for a moment.

"You didn't think you could get out of training by coming to the Fire Nation did you?" Toph teased.

"You're not alone. You have friends at your side." Robin interjected. He gave Aang a warm smile as the sun finally broke through the regressing storm.

* * *

**End of Chapter 3. The ending was weird to say the least, or at least in my opinion it was. The next chapter will feature Cyborg like I stated previously, and Raven will make an appearance too. Also, if you didn't know this already, by "Gaang" I mean Aang, Toph, Katara, and Sokka. The chapter after that will have a lot less action and focus more on the two groups bonding with each other during their travels.**

**Other than that, please review. Merry Christmas!**


	4. Chapter 4: The Dance

imsunprincess54- Glad you liked it, and thanks for reviewing!

i-am-a-coffe-crazy-writer- That is a good idea, I'll see what I can do.

PinkPanther123 – Thank you for reading as well!

Eikyuu the Jellykage- I always appreciate moral boosting reviews!

* * *

A loud yawn entered his ears, and Cyborg knew it as his own. He opened his eyes to the sight of the inside of a barn. Then he began to laugh. He was laughing at the absurdity of it. The thought that he, Cyborg, of the Teen Titans would be traveling the world in search of his friends, sleeping in haystacks inside of barns every night he could find one. Then he raised himself off the small cot that had been set up for him, courtesy of the owners of the barn themselves.

"Well, I better get started." Cyborg sighed as he pushed open the large doors leading into the barn. He was supposed to be joining the family for breakfast, but he'd decided to help them fix their roof before finishing. The family consisted of a husband, a wife, and a young boy. There was another boy in the family who was almost an adult. But he'd recently been captured in this war Cyborg kept hearing about, and the father was getting ready to go and find him.

Cyborg climbed up the ladder leading up to the roof knowing from the previous night that a hammer and some nails would already occupy one of the shingles already placed. He kneeled down and picked up a shingle and then slipped it carefully into placed. He reached for the hammer until a voice stopped him.

"You're gonna be late for breakfast." The young boy, whose name was apparently Lee, stood on the winding path leading up to their house.

"Hold on a moment." Cyborg nailed the shingle into place with just four blows from the hammer, and jumped off the roof, forgetting to use the ladder.

"Why do you always wear that armor all the time?" Lee asked suddenly.

"It doesn't come off." Cyborg replied.

"Why not?" He asked again.

"It just doesn't." Cyborg said gravely.

"Does it ever annoy you to have to always be in your armor?" Lee seemed to be eager to shower him with questions regarding his appearance.

"Sometimes." Cyborg looked down at his feet, thinking back to the time where he'd infiltrated the HIVE to learn more on their project they'd been building. During that time Brother Blood had somehow morphed his metal hands back into real ones. But only temporarily.

"Come on, I'm getting hungry." Cyborg smiled and walked back up the path.

* * *

"You're just making this harder on yourself you know." Azula spoke quietly as she walked around a very chained up Raven. "A man was here earlier asking about you. Said he'd pay a rather large amount of money to the Fire Nation if you were to be moved to a maximum security prison. My proposal is simple: Tell us where your friends are and we set you free."

Raven simply stared at the princess unwaveringly. She'd already told her she had no idea where her friends were, which was true. Her powers had a limited range, and she couldn't use them even if she wanted to.

"Not going to answer hmm?" Azula turned away for a moment, but Raven knew what was going to happen. Azula spun on her heel and smacked the empathy across the face for the third time.

"You'll be leaving tomorrow then. Have you ever heard of the Boiling Rock?" Azula stalked out of the room with a smirk on her face, but stopped at the door. "On second thought who needs rest? You'll leave tonight."

* * *

"…Hiding in cave… after cave…" Sokka droned on and on. They'd found a place to land for the day and were currently deciding on the route to take to meet up with the invasion force. Sokka had finished explaining how their lives would be until they reached their destination.

"Sokka, we don't need to become cave people." Katara reminded him with a teasing tone.

"We just need some new clothes." Robin was standing at the top of a small hill, pointing at what seemed to be five or six clotheslines hanging by a shack. An old man was sitting in a rocking chair obviously asleep.

"I don't know about this, these belong to someone." Aang stood staring at the clothes for a moment with an unsure expression plastered over his face. Katara however, had other ideas. "I call the silk robe!" She shouted as she leapt from their vantage point. She ran forward and grabbed a robe from a clothesline.

"Well, it is life or death I guess…" Aang said slowly. He followed Katara's example and jumped down after her.

"I think I'll keep what I have, but some backup clothing might not be a bad idea." Robin thought for a moment before joining Katara and Aang. The others followed suit. Robin found a red and black waistcoat and yanked it off the line.

Starfire and Beast Boy both opted to keep what they had on. Their uniforms were passably Fire Nation, or at least circus performer. Robin's cape would have attracted a bit too much attention.

"Nice disguises. Robin, good choice hiding your cape under the waistcoat." Sokka nodded slowly as he evaluated the group. "And you two would pass as circus performers. Alright. Let's go into town. We can test out our new disguises, and see if we can buy Katara a necklace there."

"We are also in need of the food." Starfire reminded him.

"And meat. We do need meat." Sokka said.

* * *

"So… you'll be leaving then?" Lee's father (who's name is Gansu apparently) stood in the entrance to the barn with his hand crossed over his chest. At first Cyborg assumed that he wanted him gone, but the man's expression was anything but hopeful.

"Yeah. Sorry I can't stay longer but I need to get going." Cyborg shouldered his bag of some things he had collected during his journey, mostly food and money.

"Listen, you seem like a good person to me. I'm leaving to go find my son, who was recently captured in the war." Gansu said..

"_There it is again. This war I keep hearing about."_ Cyborg thought to himself.

"My family… I need someone to watch over them while I'm gone. Would you…" Cyborg cut the man off before he could finish. "Stop. Stop right there. I can't stay, as much as I'd like to. But… I can try and find your son."

"I'm heading that way anyway, my friends are traveling to this Fire Nation anyway. I'll be heading right through the hills where your boy went missing. I promise I'll find him and send him back." Cyborg's voice was firm, and the man in front of him saw this and nodded.

"You'll need a picture and the name of who you're looking for."

By the end of the day Cyborg had already waved goodbye to the family who'd graciously taken him in for two days. But this meant that once again he was traveling the world alone in search of his friends. He gave another sigh as he walked, and then mentally kicked himself in the back. After all, there was no excuse for being lame. (1)

* * *

"Wow, this place is weird." Beast Boy noted. They walked down a street without homes and stores on both sides. There were quite a few places selling meat, and almost everything seemed to be red. Then at the very end of the street there was a single cabbage merchant, who was receiving almost no business. Dejected the cabbage merchant seized his goods and wheeled them off the street.

"Hmm… let's go get some meat. This place seems nice." Sokka pointed out an outdoor café where some steaks were cooking on a grill. Both Beast Boy and Aang cringed at the sight of it.

"No thanks." Aang said. "I'm a vegetarian." Beast Boy and Aang both said in unison.

"Oh come on, everything here eats meat." Sokka pointed over at an animal that seemed to be a cow and a hippo at the same time. It opened its enormous mouth and chomped down on a flayed steak on the ground, swallowing it in a single gulp.

"No thanks. I think I'll stay outside." Aang replied.

"I'm with you." Beast Boy said.

"Suit yourselves." Robin said. The others walked inside, as Beast Boy and Aang stood out on the street. Aang was continuously greeting the citizens of the town, referring to them as hotmen. Beast Boy was receiving looks that obviously were directed at his green skin and hair. One guard stopped and confronted him about, and he was ready for it. He'd said that his parents and he were taking part in a play, and that he was playing one of the earth benders. To get used to his role he was going to wear his costume for a week.

They lounged around waiting for the others to return when suddenly three fire benders walked up behind them.

"Hey you, it's over." The man in the lead said.

"Huh?" Aang asked.

"Its obvious you and your friend don't belong here." The second fire bender, a girl, spoke this time.

"The next time you want to play hooky you might want to learn a lesson from the green guy: take off your uniform first." The first man grabbed the two before they could move, and yanked them off the street. Two minutes later a confused Sokka stepped outside of the café.

"Where's Aang?"

* * *

"Where are we going?" Aang asked as he was dragged through the halls of a building. They rounded another corner to reveal another hall with many doors on each side.

"Your new classroom. You said you didn't go to school? Well now you do."

"Aww man." Beast Boy sighed. They stopped at yet another sliding door near the end of the hall. The walls were adorned with a couple of posters outside of the classroom, but most were either maps or pictures of the current Firelord, Firelord Ozai. Aang only was able to catch some of this as he stumbled as he was shoved into the classroom in front of them. Inside the room there was a desk by the door with someone who was most likely the teacher occupying the chair. The teacher was a woman, no younger than fifty years old. She looked strict and by the posture of the students she was strict. The students were all wearing clothing almost exactly identical to Aang's, save the headband. They sat in rows of desks with their hands politely folded and intently staring at the new arrivals.

"Are these new minds ready for molding?" The woman asked with an inquiring tone.

"Yep. Let the molding begin." Aang forced a smile and Beast Boy followed his lead as they tried to take in what was happening.

"Wait a minute… you're not from the Fire Nation are you?" She stood up and began to walk around them as the guards exited the room. Her eyes widened even more as she spotted Beast Boy's skin tone. "You're from the Fire Nation Colonies in the Earth Kingdom, aren't you?"

Aang, who had been holding his breath when she began, let out his breath and quickly nodded. "Yep, the Colonies in the Earth Kingdom."

"Hmm…" She nodded thoughtfully and paused before continuing. "That still does not explain why your friend here is green, and definitely does not account for your crude manners. Here in the homeland we don't paint ourselves red because we were born here now do we? Here in the homeland we also bow to our elders like so." She demonstrated, and then stood expectantly for a moment.

Aang tilted his head and attempted to copy the gesture. A girl sitting in the front row caught his eye and provided the correct way to complete the gesture.

"Good. Now, would you explain to me why you have painted yourself green?" Beast Boy sighed at her demand. _"This is gonna be a long day…"_

* * *

"Okay, they're not back yet. Something's wrong." Sokka rolled over on his back in the large cave they had lodged in for the day.

"Sokka, you're overacting." Katara rolled her eyes as she sat on the small earth stump Toph had created for them. The entire cave was like a miniature version of a medium sized house, with chairs, tables, and other various items composed of rock being the furniture. The space was wide and tall, with more than enough room for Appa to hide in the back.

"If the Avatar is as powerful as you say, he should not have a problem with the kicking of the butt." Starfire said. She didn't need to reassure herself that Beast Boy was stronger than most of the adversaries they had seen. A tyrannosaurus would probably scare them off before they stood their ground.

"What's that noise?" Toph asked suddenly. "It sounds like someone's sharpening a sword or something."

"That would be me. My grappling hook is going blunt. I need it to be sharp for a quick escape, or else it won't be able to hook onto a ledge and be able to support my weight." Robin was leaned up against the wall as the day slowly faded away. He was using one of his birdarangs to sharpen his grappling hook.

About an hour later Sokka spoke up again. "If Aang and Beast Boy aren't back by tomorrow morning we're going to search for them."

"Actually, I think we should go right-" Katara was cut off as Toph suddenly leapt for her feet, mouth open wide. "Aang! Beast Boy!"

"Aang!" Katara and Sokka shouted in unison.

"Beast Boy?" Robin called. Two silhouetted figures stepped out of the shadows and into the flickering candlelight of the cave.

"Aang, where have you been?!" Sokka shouted.

Aang smiled sheepishly. "I…"

"We kind of went to a Fire Nation school." Beast Boy interjected.

"You what!?" Sokka shouted.

"We enrolled in a Fire Nation school." Aang replied.

"You what!?!" Sokka shouted, this time even louder.

"And we're going back tomorrow. Er… well he is." Beast Boy scratched his head.

"What!?" Sokka fell backwards onto the ground.

"Look, we learned a lot of information about the Fire Nation that could prove useful in the war. I even got a picture of Firelord Ozai." Aang held up a black, white, and red poster of a man with a thin slick beard. "And here's one I made out of noodles."

"Beast Boy I am most intrigued, did you partake in an interesting experience today?"

"Well I got a detention. And apparently I have to do some community service." The Changeling smiled sheepishly again.

"How'd you get a detention?" Katara asked, vaguely interested.

"I kind of caused a chain reaction. The music room pretty much disintegrated. So they had to slate it for repairs. I'm definitely not going back tomorrow."

"Listen, I know this sounds crazy but like I said, we're learning a lot of useful information." Aang continued talking with Sokka. "We're even going to learn about a secret river tomorrow that leads straight to the royal palace."

"Oh really…" Sokka placed a hand on his chin as he thought for a moment. "Alright. We'll stay for a few more days. But that's it." His voice was firm.

* * *

"Man, I've been walking for days and it still doesn't feel like I'm getting any closer." Cyborg sighed again as he adjusted the straw hat he'd recently purchased on his head. He'd saved an entire traveling circus from being crushed by a landslide just a couple of hours earlier. They paid him all of ten gold coins.

He glanced at his arm again and started up a scan to see how close he was getting. He sighed again and stopped to rest. He was walking along a dirt road by a stream. On the other side of the road was a never ending row of trees. It was obvious to him that he was still in Earth Kingdom territory, but slowly approaching Fire Nation territory. Sometimes he'd come across a small Fire Nation settlement, evidence of their gradual occupation of the Earth Kingdom. But sometimes he'd come across an Earth Kingdom town where the citizens were somewhat more hospitable.

He sat down on a rock by the stream as the sun beat down onto his head and raised his water canteen up to his mouth and then stopped himself. While Cyborg did need to drink water, he needed it a lot less than normal people would since most of his body didn't exactly need it.

"I'm not getting any closer. Maybe I'll contact Robin now." Cyborg raised his arm and changed the scanner to communicator mode. "Calling Robin. Robin, you there?"

The communicators were voice activated in a sense. While for the other titans they had to open it themselves, you still had to say the name of the person you were calling.

"Yeah. I'm here. What is it, Cyborg?" Robin's face appeared on the screen and Cyborg let out a breath of relief.

"It's been kind of lonely out here. Just needed some company, that's all." Cyborg replied.

"Cyborg we'll always be here if you need to talk." Robin reassured him. "Wait a minute. Cyborg, run a scan of the kinetic energy in the area."

"You thinking Brother Blood?" Cyborg thought for a moment, commanding his systems to start a scan. Some of his systems were linked directly to his brain, while others he had to access manually.

"I'm thinking Blood and Slade. Slade might have been working with us to prevent the unraveling of the space-time continuum, but I doubt he'd have any doubts about messing around with this universe."

"Everything seems normal in my general are- wait. What's that?" Cyborg concentrated for a moment.

"What?" Robin asked. "What's going on?"

"There's an energy spike smack dab in the middle of a landmass close to your position. Can't locate the exact location the spike came from cause' we don't exactly have satellite to make the best map. I can only get a general idea of the land's layout. Mainly, what's water and what's not." Cyborg said.

"Is it a natural spike?" Robin asked.

"No. You were right. Most likely Slade. You can tell by the nature of the energy spike. Slade's production of his robots are morphing this one."

"Sladebots? Here?" Robin narrowed his eyes.

"Don't know how he's doing it. But I do know he is." Cyborg confirmed.

"How close is it?" Robin demanded.

"Not close enough."

* * *

"What? We can't have a dance party here!" Sokka threw his hands up in distress.

"Listen. We're trying to change the Fire Nation right?" Aang asked. He started again without waiting for an answer. "Well we can start by helping to change the world before they get all bloodthirsty and everything."

"He has a point Sokka." Katara supported Aang albeit with an amused expression plastered over her face.

"I may not know much about the Fire Nation and all but I do know those kids didn't look all that creative. They all had their hands folded." Beast Boy stuck his tongue out to feign disgust.

"Fine. But the day after the party, we are leaving." Sokka said firmly.

"Glorious!" Starfire shouted as she raised herself off of her sleeping bag she'd spread out on the ground. "I must prepare my Zorkaberries immediately!"

"Uh Star, I'm not sure you'll be able to-" Before Robin could finished she'd already dashed out of the cave. "… find them here."

* * *

"Aren't you going to tell me who she is?" A voice came from the shadows, forcing the masked man to turn around.

"No. Just be glad I was able to neutralize her powers before she woke up. It would have been very unpleasant for you and your… guards." The man returned his stare to the door in front of him. It was the only thing in the entire prison that seemed like it was red. They were on the third floor of a prison somewhere in the middle of a volcano. The door in front of the man was entirely made of metal with a small slit to look inside near the top.

The girl stepped into his view and he wasn't shocked to see Azula, princess of the Fire Nation.

"If I were you I'd speak up now, while you are still an ally of my country. With just the flick of my hand I could have you ripped apart. Most of the guards here haven't seen any action in a long time. They wouldn't think twice about having a go." Azula threatened. For some reason the highest security prison in the Fire Nation didn't have any real information chambers. At least not like the ones back in Ba Sing Se.

She could tell the man in front of her wasn't afraid of what she could do, so scaring the information out of him by threatening with her fire bending was going to work either. The only option left was the somewhat wimpier threat of the numerous guards that were stationed at the Boiling Rock.

He paused for a moment before making his decision. "Her name is Raven."

"And yours?"

"Slade. Its all you need to know, my dear." With that Slade spun on his heel and stepped out into the courtyard. He walked with his hands folded behind his back and smirked inwardly as he approached the miniature airship he'd taken to the island. There was one other method of arriving there, but he trusted himself more than anyone.

* * *

Robin twirled Starfire again inside the candlelit cave. She giggled lightly as the two danced together. The guests had finally arrived; the music had begun playing, and after some coaxing Aang and Beast Boy had managed to convince the students to start dancing. The party began as soon as the evening would let them.

"This is most enjoyable!" Starfire exclaimed once they had stopped dancing. Robin smiled as they weaved their way through the crowd. He glanced up at the small band that Aang had put together. They were standing on small cylindrical platforms… made of rock. The cave hadn't changed by much, aside from the platforms and the hundreds of candles that dotted the walls.

"What's going on?" Robin asked. The crowd was tightening into a circle with something in the middle. Starfire glanced quickly around making sure everyone had their attention focused on whatever was happening in the circle. She breathed inwardly for a moment and allowed herself to levitate slightly off the ground, just high enough to view the center of attention.

"Aang and Katara have the feelings for one another!" Starfire giggled again as she lowered herself back down.

"Huh?"

"They are dancing." Starfire grabbed his hand ignoring his blush and pulled him through the crowd. When they had weaved their way through all the awestruck students they found Aang and Katara doing a variety of jumps and flips with twirls here and there. Robin remembered seeing the two using the same dance to practice their water bending.

"Wow." Robin ran his free hand through his hair.

"Sure wish Cyborg was here. He could show them the robot." A voice chuckled and he pair turned to see Beast Boy headed their way. "Hey, what's happening now?" Everybody around them had stopped dancing, and turned towards the cavern's entrance. Standing in the entrance were four soldiers, one student, and one seriously pissed headmaster.

"He's the one we want." The headmaster pointed directly at Aang. "The boy with the headband!" Aang spun on his heel and dashed into the crowd. A second later he popped out behind them.

"Head for the back of the cave. I'm going to get the others." He whispered in Robin's ear. Robin nodded slightly, as to not look suspicious. Everybody around them had begun to slip on their headbands, and the soldiers who'd come to break up the party and to arrest Aang found themselves surrounded by a sea of headbands. Robin guessed that since their orders were to apprehend a young boy with a headband, they'd have a pretty hard time finding out who was who. He motioned for his friends to follow him, and within a couple of minutes they'd loaded their gear onto Appa and were climbing onto his back for takeoff.

* * *

**First thing's first. Originally I had another page of dialogue written out, But then I got lazy, didn't want to think of a way to tie it up, and brought it back here. Anyway if there are any references of Cyborg and/or Raven physically being in the same room with the other titans and the Gaang, then that's entirely accidental. I had to delete another page because it included a conversation between Cyborg, Sokka, and Beast Boy. **

**Also, the imagery at some points in this chapter was downright horrible (or at least to me). If you want to see more of the environment I'm talking about, go online to a site called toonsurfer. You can watch every episode of Teen Titans and Avatar: The Last Airbender there. Although beware of pop-ups every time you try and play a video. **

**I kind of forget why I put this in there exactly, but these numbers will be by any references to other things. Things as in it could be referencing to absolutely anything. There's more than just one reference but I don't read over my work twice unless I absolutely have to. **

**Another note is that for the next chapter I'll be straying away from the main line of episodes for Avatar: the Last Airbender. I want to focus more on getting the Gaang to bond with the titans, and maybe reveal Starfire's uber alien strength somewhere along the way. Originially I was just trying to rush the story along to the invasion plan. **

**Now that all is said and done, all I have to say is that I appreciate reviews, and thank you all for reading.**


	5. Chapter 5: The Casual Day

**OnceUponALegend**- Well, as much as I agree about the whole narrative thing, I'm not one for detail. So since I'm just lazy like that (see, I'm doing it again) I just throw everything that's not in the narrative at the end in a big explanation. But, glad you liked the story.

**BlistersOnMyFingers****-** Thanks for the _awesome _review!

**Ima****-** These questions will be answered in due time…

**Hinn-Raven****-** Heh, I'm still working on that as you'll see. It's a process. Although I got a plan mapped out and everything now.

* * *

The full moon's silver shine illuminated the earth below. The time was roughly midnight, but there was no way to tell for sure. Katara was resting her head silently on Appa's saddle as they slowly glided in search of a new hiding spot. She smiled silently, taking in the light breeze, the warm air, it was the perfect…

"Dude, all we've seen is trees. Is that all there is around here?" Katara frowned as her thoughts were cut short. She raised her head to see Beast Boy leaning over the edge peering at the shaded landscape.

"You should see the Air Temples. They're pretty cool, especially the Western Air Temple." Aang's eyes shone as he spoke about his former comrades.

"Can you keep it down?" Sokka spoke with an annoyed tone from his position in the saddle. "Some of us actually need to sleep."

"Please, continue with the explaining of this Air Temple." Starfire said. Aang found himself smiling as he discovered he was finally getting used to her strange way of speech.

"Well, the entire place is under a mountainside." Aang explained, keeping his hands on the reins as he guided Appa along. While Appa was a smart sky bison, and completely capable of taking care of himself as well as other members of the group, he didn't exactly have a map in front of him that sky bison could understand. "And, the only way to get around is to fly using your gliders. I'll have to take you there sometime. I bet you'd love it."

"Doesn't look like we're going to be finding any caves anytime soon. Maybe we should be looking for something else, like a waterfall in an enclosed space." Robin suggested to Aang as he examined the map again.

"We could always hide Appa under a lot of grass or something. He'd look like a hill with horns." Beast Boy chuckled at Aang's joke.

"You guys don't like to stay quiet for very long, do you?" Toph yawned as she woke up. She stretched her arms and raised herself into a sitting position. Although the saddle was occupied by six people with Aang sitting on Appa's neck, there was a surprising amount of space left for them to move about.

"You think this is loud? You should see Raven." Beast Boy laughed again. The empath rarely shouted or screamed. She was almost always in control of her emotions, or at least she seemed to be.

"You never really did explain who Raven was." Katara noted.

"Raven is... mysterious to say the least." Starfire said. "There is much we are not meant to understand about her."

"But she's one of our closest friends; we all live together back at the tower." Robin said.

"The tower? You all live in a tower?" Sokka asked. He couldn't imagine someone living in a tower, since the only ideas he could get was a thin cylindrical building.

"It's a giant T shaped building." Beast Boy elaborated. "I know it sounds weird, but it's actually pretty cool."

"Down there! Wow, Robin, you were right about the waterfall thing." Aang pointed down at a majestic waterfall surrounded by a small cliff with a narrow entrance. The waterfall itself spilled out into a small pool in the middle of the bowl shaped area. A thick, dense forest was both on top of the cliff and some trees were at the entrance.

"That looks safe enough; Besides, we're all probably getting pretty tired." Katara agreed.

"Anywhere is good as long as I can get some shut eye." Toph said.

"Oh, now you all start to get sleepy." Sokka's voice was practically dripping with sarcasm. Appa approached the ground slowly and landed by the glistening water. Aang began unloading their supplies after he was satisfied with their hiding spot for the night. They were a couple of miles away from a town, which wasn't all that far. They were protected on three sides by the rocks and the cliff. If something were to happen to Appa impairing his ability to fly, there was a source of water nearby. Firewood obviously wasn't a problem with an entire forest of trees at their feet. In short, it was much better than most of the locations they'd bunked at.

"Good night everybody." Aang said as they finally settled down into their separate tents.

"Good night." Sokka, Katara, Robin, and Toph said in unison. Beast Boy snored from inside his tent.

"Pleasant shlorvax." Starfire called from inside her tent. Sokka began to speak, but then thought better of it and went to sleep.

* * *

"We're going into to town to get some more supplies." Katara called as she grabbed a small bag filled with coins of varying colors. The sun shone brightly onto their faces making the lake seem to sparkle. Both Beast Boy and Aang found themselves floating lazily on the water to start off a hopefully relaxing day. Toph was demonstrating another earthbending move to Robin, so he could get an idea of how they fought. Katara had invited Starfire to come with her into town for the shopping trip, since it was better to never go anywhere alone.

"Just be back before sundown." Sokka shouted as he threw his shirt over so it landed by his tent. He jumped into the water and grinned. "We're staying for the night."

"We must make with the haste! I do not wish to waste precious time which could be used for the shopping." Starfire grabbed Katara's hand and led her off. Katara grinned in spite of herself, smiling at the girl's enthusiasm.

"Girl's day out. Hope they have fun." Sokka said with a preoccupied tone as he floated on his back. Momo glided over and landed on his stomach and purred.

"So… you raise your fist like this, and hold it out in front of you." Toph demonstrated as she held her fist out in front her. It was almost the perfect fighting stance, aside from the bottom half of her stance being off. "Then… you jab forward hard like your trying to crush the person in front of you. With earth bending you have to be firm."

Toph lashed out suddenly at the rock in front of her, and it was sent flying into the Cliffside where it shattered.

"Why didn't you go into town with Katara and Starfire?" Robin asked suddenly.

"I was going to, but we need to start training you guys too. Katara told me about your fight with the Dai Li below Ba Sing Se. Apparently you were good, but not exactly experienced in fighting elite earth benders. Without any bending of your own, you'll need to be more prepared to defend yourself." Toph explained. Robin nodded and they continued.

"Now if you ever meet another earth bending opponent you'll need to…"

Beast Boy rolled off the giant leaf he was floating on and dived into the depths below. When he was sure Aang wasn't looking he morphed into a fish. He relaxed in the form of the fish, happy to be able to use his powers again. Then he remembered to resurface to avoid looking suspicious.

The changeling looked over at Aang, who was still lying on his back with closed eyes. He grinned mischievously and ducked under the water again. He morphed into a flying fish, known for their high jumping ability and shot up into the air. He changed back and shouted, "Geronimo!" Aang's eyes shot open and he was met with the sight of a green blur hitting the water and a wave drenching both him and Sokka, who'd finally drifted over. The trio swam back up to the surface, and burst out laughing.

* * *

"That's a nice necklace." Katara held up a small… red necklace before putting it back onto the cart.

"Do you wish to purchase it?" Starfire asked as she held up two red tops in front of her.

"No, I don't. It looks nice and all but… I don't know." She sighed.

"Must everything here be the color of red?" Starfire asked again. She found the trip into town intriguing to say the least. Starfire had trouble adjusting to earth customs due to the fact that she was born on the planet Tamaran. Every day she was learning something new, or discovering another interesting invention.

"Well this is the Fire Nation." Katara remarked. "But it's not like that all over the world. You saw for yourself in the Earth Kingdom remarked everything seemed to be green."

"Then… in the Water Tribe everything is blue?" Starfire was quick to make the connection.

"Yeah. The Air Nomads really don't have much of a color aside from what they wear though. It can get kind of confusing." Katara stated.

"Every day I learn something new about the world in which we live. Coming here has been a wonderful experience." Starfire smiled.

"Alright, now it's my turn to start asking questions." Katara grinned. "First I wanted to know…"

* * *

"Alright, get back to your cells!" The shout of a guard emanated from somewhere on top of the walls. Raven sighed to herself as she was ushered along back into the main compound along with the hundreds of other prisoners. Over the course of about a month or so, she'd befriended another prisoner, Suki. Suki was part of an elite group of fighters, called the Kyoshi Warriors. Since she was their leader the Fire nation decided to make the Boiling Rock her permanent home. They'd become friends purely by accident; Suki had been one of the prisoners not just looking out for themselves, and she was also around Raven's age.

The prison compound itself was in the middle of a volcano. Inside the volcano was boiling lake, with the prison on top of an island. Nobody had ever escaped because they couldn't fly. There was no wood to build a boat, and aside from hijacking the gondola there was no getting out. Before the rush of the crowd carried her inside she took one final glance around the compound. Four metal walls surrounded the building. There seemed to be… one… two th-

"Move it!" A crack of a whip brought Raven back from her thoughts as pain seared through her arm. The force of the blow sent her crashing down from her feet and she rolled onto the ground. She raised her head and sent one glare at the guard who carried the discipline inducing weapon, and hoisted herself up off the ground and into the building.

The empath sat in her cell pondering her current position. How she had ended up there, what had started the madness. There was no regret inside her at all, only hope that her friends would find her… before she lost herself.

* * *

"We're back!" Katara called as they entered their makeshift camp. The sun was setting somewhere below the horizon, out of view of the motley group. Katara and Starfire both carried a basket of supplies in their arms.

"You're back!" Aang shouted from his position near the tents they'd erected.

"What did you get?" Toph asked. She and Robin were still working on the Boy Wonder's technique at facing earth benders, in preparation for the next battle with the Dai Li. Both had stopped to greet the returning shoppers.

"Dude, those don't look like vegetables." Beast Boy frowned as they unloaded the contents of the baskets onto the ground by the fire. Most of it was either huge chunks of meat, or some herbs for Katara to use for whatever she needed them for.

"That's because they're not." Katara grinned at his downcast expression. Aang groaned in the background.

"Alright, Robin and I have decided that we need to get back on track if we want to meet up with the invasion force in time." Sokka pushed his way into the circle around their food and with a map clutched in one hand. "We'll have to leave tomorrow morning, so we're gonna have to eat and then sleep."

"Tomorrow morning?" Beast Boy groaned.

"The rendezvous is pretty far from here. With three extra people for Appa to carry we'll have to leave earlier than we would." Sokka replied simply. Starfire and Beast Boy both glanced at Robin, who gave them a look that said 'wait one minute'.

* * *

After supper the group trudged off to their separate tents one after another, until only three were awake. The full moon had faded out of sight, and the sound of soft snoring emanated from Sokka's tent.

"Beast Boy, get in here!" Robin hissed from inside his tent. The changeling glanced around and slipped into the form of a mouse. He scurried inside Robin's tent to find Starfire already inside.

"Robin? Starfire? What's going on?" Beast Boy asked, his voice clouded with confusion. Robin moved his hand and in a second the tent was flooded with a dim light; a candle had been lighted.

"We need to plan our next move." Robin said quietly.

"Didn't you just explain our next move when Starfire and Katara came back?" Beast Boy asked again.

"I mean _our_ next move. We still need to find Raven. We could easily head back to pick up Cyborg right now and then start our search again. We've only stayed with this group this long because we thought that since they brought us together, maybe they could help us find her." Robin continued until Starfire cut him off.

"I believe what Robin is trying to say is that perhaps it would be best if we continued our search for Raven without our new friends." Starfire finished gravely. She looked at the ground with a saddened expression on her face.

"We can't just abandon them after everything they've done for us! We're the Teen Titans. We help people!" Beast Boy exclaimed suddenly, a new light burning in his eyes. "While I think we should be looking for Raven, we also should try and help them. Besides, didn't you say time passes differently here?"

Robin closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "Two weeks. That's it. We'll continue on with this group here for two more weeks. If we don't find any clues on what happened to Raven, we're going to have to split up."

Beast Boy and Starfire both nodded in agreement. "That seems fair." Beast Boy eventually said.

Outside of the tent Toph scrambled back to her tent as she felt the titans' movement indicating that they were returning to their own tents. When she returned she felt surprised with herself; she felt a pang of sadness. It seemed like the two groups had been together since the beginning.

"Toph? What are you doing up?" Toph spun around and felt the earth.

"Sokka? I was just…" Toph trailed off. "I'm going to bed."

"Um… okay." Sokka replied drowsily. "Where'd we leave the drinking water again?" He yawned.

"Over there." Toph jabbed an arm out over in Appa's general direction and returned to her rock tent. Meanwhile, Beast Boy lay awake in his tent on the other side of camp. He rolled over in his sleep with a frown etched across his face. A cold breeze blew across the camp, and the changeling shivered in his dreams thinking of a girl named Terra.

* * *

**Eh. Couldn't get the ending down. Will Terra be returning? Nope. Most of the time I spent typing this up was done in one night. The last two pages on the other hand… took me two weeks. Nothing much else to say because while I had a note that I was going to write to clear things up, I've forgotten what I wanted to say.**

**Unable to say when the next updates gonna be coming in, but it will be before the end of next February. **


	6. Chapter 6: The Sword

**First things first, I'd like to have a good excuse as to why I haven't updated in a while, like I died or something, but here I am. Finally. Truthfully I really only tried to sit down two or three times to start writing this chapter, but then something would come up. Literally the moment I sat down. Then one day while I was checking whether to see my favorite stories had been updated between the four things I usually check here on fanfiction I decided to sign into my profile and check out my reviews. Needless to say, you guys inspired me. Thanks for bringing me back. Truthfully, we decided to go visit some of our cousins who we've been practically best friends with forever, and had a great time over the weekend. Hope you had as much fun as I had while you were waiting. **

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Teen Titans.

WARNING: _Octopuses will be shooting water out of tentacles. If you like to remain within the rules of reality, stop reading immediately. Yes, that means you._

* * *

"Wow." The awe in the boy's voice was unmistakable as he took in the breathtaking sight from his position on the slope of a hill.

"It has been a while since we have seen something so beautiful." Starfire said. She blushed as Robin's hand found hers under the starlit sky. Above them in the distance rocks shrouded in blue flame rained down on the earth below. It was the perfect night.

"I can't remember the last time I saw a meteor shower… we don't get these in Jump City." Beast Boy sighed as he laid on his back staring into the night sky.

"It kind of makes you wonder about your place in the world…" Sokka mused, "And how insignificant we are…"

"Eh, you seen nothing once, you've seen it a thousand times." Toph found herself surprised, though she didn't show it, that she was unfazed by her inability to see the "breathtaking" sight, as Aang had described it.

"This is amazing…" Katara said.

"Wait a minute…" Robin began suddenly. One of the meteors brought itself closer to their position than the rest. They could practically hear it burning through the oxygen in the air, the screaming of the meteor as it hurdled... straight for their position.

"Dude, watch out!" Beast Boy exclaimed at the same time Sokka shouted, "Get down!"

But their warning wasn't required, as the fiery blue rock soared over their campsite on top of the hill and off at least a mile into the distance where it hit the ground and exploded. The explosion was tinted with a hint of cyan, and it was a big explosion to say the least. They all scrambled up onto a large mound of gravel on the hilltop, and stared into the distance at the impact sight. A rather large trail of smoke replaced the cyan tinted explosion, the smoke only visible because of the light emanating from what was obviously a fire. The blaze itself was obscured because of one of several hills that dotted the countryside.

The group exchanged glances, and all leaped onto Appa's back. Aang wasted no time at all.

"Yip-Yip!" Aang shouted as he seized Appa's reins. Appa was definitely a smart sky bison. Before Aang could even begin to point Appa in the right direction the bison was already off in the direction of the explosion. It took the Gaang about two seconds to spot a town near the now burning meteor as they glided towards it.

"The fire's gonna destroy that town!" Katara shouted. Instantly Toph was alert as Appa approached the ground, Katara's shout informing her about the impending danger.

"Not if we stop it first!" Robin replied. As soon as Appa's feet touched the ground everybody except Katara and Beast Boy were on the ground.

"There's a creek nearby. I'll bend the water and Appa can fly me back!" Beast Boy nodded and leaped off. As soon as his feet reached land instead of following suit with the others to try and stop the fire, he morphed into a snake the second Katara had turned her back and towards her target for the stream.

"Toph, let's make a trench to keep the fire from coming any closer." Aang spoke rapidly. Toph simply nodded and they both charged forward.

"Wait, what should we do?" Sokka demanded as he held his water bender styled machete.

"Uh… look after Momo. Robin, you should probably come with us with those… explosive devices or whatever." Aang hastily replied without breaking his pace. Momo flew over and landed on his shoulder.

"What, so I'm just a lemur sitter?!" Sokka exclaimed in disgust. He glanced over at Starfire.

"Where is Beast Boy?" Starfire asked. Sokka was surprised for a moment, but didn't let it show. Starfire had assumed a battle stance, better than the ones Zuko usually showed up with.

"_If there's one thing Zuko always has down aside from firepower…it's a battle stance. Hah! Hahah! Firepower…and Zuko's a fire bender. I'm definitely saving that one later." _Sokka pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind as Starfire resumed a normal pose to watch their friends battle the raging inferno.

A couple of sparks from the fire ignited the grass next to him, and he hastily moved to beat them out with his boomerang, while Starfire attacked the ignited strands of grass with a rock. Sokka turned his gave back to the fire, and almost as if on cue the ground shook, there was a single explosion, and the meteor found itself on its own little island in the middle of a large trench.

Meanwhile, Katara and Appa had reached the stream. In one run Appa swooped down low over the stream and leaned to the side. Katara leaned over, almost hanging off the side of Appa's neck and moved her hands, commanding the water to rise. In under a second she had a gigantic floating bubble of water following them back to the inferno. The moment Appa disappeared from view Beast Boy slithered out from the tree line. He chuckled as he changed himself into an octopus and began to suck up water from the stream.

Back at the fire, Katara returned, and Sokka watched in a dejected stance as she used her water bending to make the bubble rain down onto the fire. A full quarter was instantly extinguished. Toph, who had examined Starfire's attempt to battle the blaze, decided to use the same technique but on a bigger scale. She punched both of her hands forward and a large rectangular rock rose up into the trench. In an instant it was moving, almost rolling, over the flames to extinguish them. Even so, some of the fire still licked out at the side of the rock.

"Out of water!" Katara prepared to go back for more, but a stream of water launched itself over the trees from a hidden source. Katara was stupefied, but regained her senses and bended the water over to Aang.

"Sokka, Starfire, stand clear!" Aang ordered.

"Right," Sokka's still dejected tone answered. "Stand clear."

Aang held the floating bubble behind him, sucked in his breath, and used his air bending to blow it out, forming the water into an expanding bubble that popped, putting the fire out completely, and actually making it snow from the remains of the bubble and ashes.

"Good work everybody." Aang dusted off his hands as Appa landed nearby, and Katara leaped off his back. A huge smile overtook his face. Meanwhile, Sokka popped up out of the ashes with a rather obvious upside down smile plastered onto his.

* * *

The next day, the group sat at a café in the town they'd just saved the night before.

"These people have no idea how close they were to getting toasted." Aang remarked as he looked around.

"Yeah, if there's one thing I miss about not being undercover, its that we don't get any hero worship anymore." Toph grumbled. "I miss the love."

"Hero worship?" Robin piped up.

"Yeah. People used to praise us all the time for saving them. But this is the Fire Nation. Home of the world's most welcoming citizens." Katara muttered the last part sarcastically.

"But don't get us wrong, we do good things because we're good people. Not just for the hero worship." Aang said hastily.

"There is no doubt in my mind that you are good people. A person who is not as caring or as kind as you four would have left us to fend for ourselves instead of taking us in." Starfire reassured him.

"Besides, we know where you're coming from with that." Beast Boy began, but a warning glance that flickered onto Robin's face told him to steer clear of the 'hero' topic.

"Hmm?" Katara asked absentmindedly.

"Uh… never mind?" Beast Boy said in an unsure tone.

"Boohoo, poor heroes." Sokka muttered. He alone wasn't at the table with the others, instead he sat on the edge of the balcony from the café, is legs swinging freely in the breeze. But that fooled no one; he was obviously disappointed by something.

"What's your problem? You haven't even touched your smoked sea slug." Katara asked innocently.

"Yeah, lighten up dude!" Beast boy supported.

"It's just, all you guys can do this awesome bending stuff. Like flying around, and putting out forest fires, or making other stuff fly around." Sokka twirled his finger in a circular motion as he said this. "I can't fly around, okay. I can't do anything." He sighed.

"That is not true. While you may not be able to do the bending of the elements, you are always able to do something. Last night you assisted me in stopping the fire from escaping the trench. If we had not been there to help put out those small sparks, the fire would have spread possibly beyond control." Starfire attempted to comfort him.

"Yeah, Sokka. You know that's not true. You can always do something. Besides, no one can read a map like you." Katara assured her brother.

"I can't read at all." Toph pointed at her eyes.

"Yeah, and who keeps us laughing with sarcastic comments all the time?" Aang asked.

"Look, guys, I appreciate the effort. But, the fact is, each of you is so amazing and so special, and I'm… not. I'm just the guy in the group who's regular." Sokka's shoulders heaved and he sighed, obviously depressed.

Katara exchanged a look with Aang, and stood up. She walked and sat down by Sokka and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry you're feeling so down, but I hope you know none of us see you that way."

"Besides, Beast Boy and Starfire don't have special powers either." Toph said in a lighthearted tone. Beast Boy rolled his eyes as Starfire and Robin locked eyes for a second. Robin's expression was something like 'if only they knew'.

"I have an idea that'll make you feel better." Katara put an arm around her brother's shoulder, and he stared at her for a second.

* * *

"Aww man! This has got to be the third time I've seen that rock!" Cyborg threw his hands into the air. He'd been seemingly walking in circles for hours in a 'cursed' forest, as the locals so kindly put it. Cyborg didn't believe the local superstition, and now that he was lost and very much alone –if you didn't count the several bloodthirsty animals he'd had to fight and eventually ended up filling his belly with, that is- he wished that he had taken the main road instead of the shortcut through the forest.

"Hello?" Cyborg called out, already knowing he wouldn't receive an answer. "Hello! Anybody out there?!" He sighed again. After walking a bit more he decided to stop to rest by a stream flowing nearby. He kneeled down by the stream and was about to try and wash his face, when a large tree shaking thud alerted him to a possible enemy presence.

"Hello? Who's out there?!" Something that vaguely resembled a cross between a hawk and an otter flew overhead, away from the sound of the thud. Another bang and the ground shook this time. More misshapen animal forms threw themselves away from the threatening sound, crashing into objects and even each other in their mad dash to flee.

"Show yourself!" Cyborg readied his sonic cannon and aimed it into the underbrush. He mind raced wildly. _"If whatever it is doesn't come out in ten seconds I'm firing warning shots. Without a team to back me up if I get ambushed I'm as good as dead." _

"You've got five seconds before I shoot. Five… four…" He didn't get to finish his sentence as what looked like a giant boar flung itself out of the underbrush and smashed dead on into Cyborg. Cyborg flew back through the trees, breaking them in half on contact, until he finally hit the ground and rolled. "Ungh…" He groaned and raised himself to his feet.

Cyborg barely had time to launch himself to his right as the boar thing charged again. He glanced around at his surroundings, and was surprised to see that almost all of the trees the two had come into contact with had fallen over, and lay twisted and broken.

"You're powerful, I'll give you that." Cyborg grinned and shot a blast from his arm cannon at the oversized pig. In one swipe of its horns the blast was deflected. "_That's definitely not a normal boar… something's weird about those horns…"_ He charged the boar and attempted to leap over his head, but one of it's' horns sent him sprawling.

He rolled back up to his feet, spun to face his opponent, and dug his heels into the soft dirt below. The boar seemed to sense that he wasn't going to avoid the next blow and stalked slowly around him. Once it reached his front again it decided to charge.

"Heeeerrrrrrah!" Cyborg grabbed the boar by the horns and locked eyes with it. He grinned again and heaved his arms upwards… sending the pig flying about forty or so yards, where it landed with a resounding thud.

"Booyah!" Cyborg shouted. He stepped over to the body, where the sight that greeted him gave him a sense of déjà vu. The pig's side was torn open, to reveal mechanical wiring, something that should've been nonexistent in this world.

"Nonexistent until Slade showed up." Cyborg muttered. In one of the pig's eyes Slade's insignia flickered briefly. Then the number five. It changed to the number four. It was at the number three that Cyborg realized what was happening. He spun on his heel and flung himself in the direction of the stream, praying that it wasn't too shallow. He hit the water the moment the body exploded, and could feel the heat licking at his heels before he submerged himself fully.

"_Man, that was too close…"_ Cyborg thought to himself. He looked around to see where he was. After a moment he grinned for the fifth time that day. "Looks like I found my way again."

* * *

Fifteen minutes after leaving the café, the group found themselves standing in the entrance of a shop with a name way to fancy to pronounce. Beast Boy was the first to poke his head inside the shop, and his jaw dropped at what was inside. The walls were red, no surprise there. The shelves were brown. Surprisingly. What was on the shelves… was a rather large variety of dangerous weapons. There was everything from spears to maces to a combination of the two.

Sokka grinned and leaped forward. The first shelf he visited was the spear section. The spears were tipped with hooks, daggers, knives, blades, and one even looked like it had a blade big enough to be a broadsword on the end. He reached down under the spear and produced a pair of nun-chucks.

"How bout' these?" Sokka asked Toph as she stepped around from the other side of the shelf. He twirled them around his body and was beginning to enjoy the feel… until he bonked himself on the head and fell to the ground. "Ow…" Toph laughed.

Katara meanwhile was trying on a pair of leather gloves with Robin, and they both turned at the sound of Aang's voice. "What do you think?" Robin's jaw dropped, and Katara dropped her gloves. Aang was outfitted in some sort of chief's warrior outfit. A skull adorned one of his shoulders, while a spike pad was on the other. The chest plate was a model of somebody's abs, and a chain hung down from his neck. The helmet was a wolf's mouth, with most of the teeth still attached, and two giant horns sticking up where the ears would have been. He was wearing what seemed to be a giant hand over his hand, with a ruby engraved in the side as well as claws on the end. In his other hand he held a sword handle.

"Now all I need is a wind sword." Aang said.

Katara blinked twice before answering. "What's a wind sword?"

"It's where I get a sword handle and bend wind out like a blade." Aang swished the sword handle around.

"Um… does that work with fire benders as well?" Robin asked.

"Yeah. It works really wel- whoa!" The weight of the armor tipped Aang over and he fell flat on his back. "Eh… I'll just stick with what I got."

* * *

Sokka clapped his hands together and lunged forward, seizing his target from its basket. In his hands he held a spear shaft, the blade looking particularly sharp, even by spear standards. A second later he walked away frowning with the spear embedded in the ceiling.

Dual swords just didn't feel like they flowed, although he preformed pretty well with them. It was hard to ignore Beast Boy's snickers as he tried charging with an extra long spear, but they both ended up having a good chuckle as they both tried to lift a heavy looking mace. A throwing chain backfired, and throwing knives were already out before he even picked one up. Then as he twirled the knife around in his hand and prowled the store for something else to try, he saw it.

What seemed to be a simple katana at first glance… but it was more than just a katana. It was a jian, and a beautiful one at that. "That's what Sokka's talking about." He picked up the sheathed sword as the store clerk walking out from the back room.

"You have a good eye. That's an original from Piandao, the greatest swords maker and swords master in Fire Nation history. He lives up in the big castle up the road from here." The clerk seized a broom and began to sweep the shop, leaving Sokka and the others to wallow in their thoughts.

"That's it!" Aang exclaimed suddenly. "That's what you needed all along Sokka!"

"A sword?" Sokka asked, clearly puzzled.

"No, a master! We've all had masters to help us get better. You should see if you can study with Piandao." Aang replied.

"That's a great idea," Katara supported. "I never could've gotten where I am today with Master Pakkun. Everyone needs a teacher."

"I learned from badger moles. They don't talk, but they're still good teachers." Toph remarked.

"I learned from the Doo- Oof!" Beast Boy glared at Robin who'd elbowed him swiftly.

"Hmm?" Katara looked over at Robin along with everybody else, obviously puzzled at what just happened.

"Never mind." Robin said firmly.

"Okay… let's go!" Sokka chose to ignore what had just happened.

* * *

"Calling Robin. Robin, are you there?" Cyborg made sure he was speaking clearly and tried again. "Calling Robin." His communicator flickered for a moment, and then sprang to life with Robin's face on the screen.

"Cyborg? What's up? You usually don't call until the moon is up." Robin asked.

"I found something to do with Slade. Something more than just energy signatures." Robin was instantly alert at the name 'Slade'. Saying they had history would've been an understatement. Seeing that Robin was waiting for him to go on Cyborg continued.

"I was attacked by some type of pig thing, and it was pretty powerful. Since all the animals are weird around here, I was thinking that it was normal. In weird normal way."

Cyborg frowned, and then started again. "It's what happened after the battle that made me think Slade had something to do with it; The boar had Slade's insignia in its eye, it turned out to be a mechanical pig, and it was a bomb."

"He's going to be starting something soon… try and keep a low profile until it happens." Robin ordered.

"Wait, Robin." Robin stared into his communicator. "Listen, what if Slade is gonna try and mess with this invasion plan or whatever? The plan your new friend the avatar is cooking up?"

Robin thought for a moment. "That would make sense, if he's making a deal with the Fire Nation... on second thought, you might want to see what you can figure out about what might be going on."

"Alright. Listen, I gotta go. Wouldn't want someone figuring out what I was I doing here. See ya." Robin nodded at Cyborg and flipped his communicator closed.

* * *

"Sokka's coming!" Toph shouted suddenly. Aang, Katara, and Toph all were laying around lazily on the ground near Appa waiting for Sokka to return. The blazing sun and the absence of their new friends didn't make their wait any easier.

Everybody sat up with huge smiles plastered across their faces.

"Hey guys, what're you doing?" Sokka walked up the path to their campsite.

"Sokka!" They all shouted in unison, and all leaped forward to hug him.

"Sokka, say something funny!" Aang shouted.

"Something funny." Sokka asked in a very confused tone. He was confused even more when both Katara and Aang burst out laughing. He turned to Toph. "What's their deal?"

"I don't know," Toph said as she turned away to hide her blush, "They missed you or something. I didn't care."

"Thanks. That warms my heart…. Anyway, I need some help."

* * *

Boom! Another rock exploded in a shower of green energy. Starfire stood below the carnage above, panting from the training. Robin threw another target up in the air, and Starfire used her eyes to destroy it this time.

"Perfect." Robin smiled. "That's enough for today."

"Robin, the day is still young and I can still go on." Starfire proclaimed.

"Yeah, I have no doubt about that Star, but we only collected about a thousand or so rocks. In other words, you blew them all up." Starfire jumped for joy. Literally. After they grabbed Beast Boy from the place he'd chosen to train (as a monkey jumping through the trees) they returned to the campsite.

"There you guys are!" Sokka exclaimed. "Come on!"

* * *

"So… we're trying to drag this rock thing all the way to that Piano dude or whatever his name is?" Beast Boy asked, clearly doubting their ability to do so. They stood staring down on the meteor inside the crater it had created.

"Yep." Sokka replied.

"Don't worry; with our earth bending it'll be easy." Toph reassured him.

"Besides, we've got like what? Seven people here to push this thing." Katara said, eyeing the meteor with confidence.

Toph and Aang both used earthbending to help pave the way, while everybody else pushed on the rock over the rough terrain. After about an hour of work, and two or three rest stops, they stood panting at the bottom of the slope leading up to the castle.

"Come on guys, we're almost there!" Sokka shouted halfheartedly.

"Dude! Its gonna take forever to get up this hill…" Beast Boy fell flat on his back thinking of work ahead of them.

"We're not gonna get anywhere by standing down here." Aang replied firmly.

"I think Starfire and I can take it from here." Robin grinned inwardly. After he whispered something in the Tamaranean's ear he took a position on the left side of the meteor.

"Are you sure we should do this?" Starfire asked him.

"Positive. Just don't try and strain anything." Robin replied. "Push!!"

Sokka's jaw nearly dropped to the ground when he saw their speed up the slope. A second later his legs gave in and he fell to his knees. If Toph was surprised she didn't show it. Aang's eyes opened as far as they could go.

"Man, those two are strong." Toph remarked.

In less than twenty seconds they had cleared about three hundred meters uphill without visibly breaking a sweat.

"Wish they could've had that energy an hour ago." Beast Boy smirked.

"You said it." Sokka agreed.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's head on up." Katara said.

* * *

Sokka ran up to the double doors that were the entrance to the castle, and slammed the dual knockers down onto the doors repeatedly. Almost immediately Piandao answered his knocking. He poked his head around the door and opened his mouth to speak.

"Who's this?" He asked simply.

"Oh, these are my friends. Just other good Fire Nation folk." Sokka replied as they all gave a polite bow.

"If you don't mind me asking, why is he green?" Piandao cocked an eyebrow upon seeing Beast Boy.

"Um…" Sokka struggled to recall their cover story.

"Oh well I guess it doesn't matter much." The master swordsman gave a polite bow in return.

"Master, do you think we could make a sword out of a meteorite?" Sokka asked. Piandao eyed the meteor over and gave his decision. "We shall make a sword unlike any other in the world." He declared.

* * *

A couple of days later, they returned to the castle to give their goodbyes to Sokka's master, as he presented Sokka with his sword. They were ushered into main hall and ended up kneeling down a couple of feet away from Sokka and his master as they began the ceremony.

"Sokka, when you first arrived you were so unsure. You even seemed down on yourself. But I saw something in you right away: I saw a heart as strong as a lion turtle and twice as big. As we trained, it wasn't your skills that impressed me. Oh no, it certainly wasn't your skills. You showed something beyond that; creativity," Piandao produced a sword sheath adorned with the golden design of a dragon. He slid the sword out of the sheath to produce a breathing-taking black jian style blade. "… versatility, intelligence. These are the traits that define a great swordsmen. These are the traits that define you."

Master Piandao stepped up to Sokka's kneeling form, and bowed his head, presenting him with the sheathed onyx colored jian. "You told me you were not worthy. But I believe you are the most worthy man I have ever trained."

He stepped back after placing the sheath into Sokka's hands. Sokka stared at the blade and frowned, sighing inwardly. "I'm sorry master. I'm not worthy. I'm not who you think I am. I'm not from the Fire Nation. I'm from the Southern Water Tribe."

"I lied so that I could learn swordsmanship from you. I'm sorry." Sokka attempted to present his master with the blade to return it. Piandao was already turning away when spoke. "I'm sorry too."

Robin was already on his feet the moment Piandao whipped around with his sword speeding for Sokka's face. Sokka leaped backwards narrowly avoiding the blow, and followed up with a parry of his own. Not taking his gaze off of his master he held out a hand behind him, signaling for his friends to stop.

"No, this is my fight, alone." Reluctantly they agreed with his wishes and assumed regular stances.

"We will do this formally. Follow me." Piandao motioned with his hand for the Gaang and his butler to follow him outside into the courtyard below. There were a set of stairs leading down into the actual courtyard, and a thick dense set of bamboo stalks in the yard as well. Farther off there was a tiny bridge overlooking a stream small enough to hop over. "Sokka, you don't have to do this." Aang said.

"We can take this guy. There are seven of us and two of them." Robin supported.

"I need to do this alone." Sokka replied.

"You six will remain here with me." The butler said as Sokka and his former master both stepped down the stairs into the courtyard. They lined up opposite one another and took a few steps back. Sokka locked eyes with Piandao and gripped his sword tighter.

"Good luck Sokka!" Katara called. He couldn't help but grin that his sister would be shouting such a thing; usually she would've observed him silently, or even more commonly she would've been grappling with her own opponent.

"Begin!" The butler shouted.

Piandao made the first move, taking a short stab at his student. Sokka stepped backwards to avoid the first stab and the follow up swipe. Piandao raised his weapon over his head and brought it crashing downwards on top of Sokka's hastily raised sword.

Sokka lunged forward as Piandao moved his body swiftly to the side after anticipating the blow. He retaliated with a low stab that Sokka jumped over. Piandao avoided another one of Sokka's lunges and shoved him backwards into the small wooden bridge. Sokka stepped up onto the railing and avoided multiple swipes from his opponent by leaping from one side of the bridge to another. After a few more blows their battle led them up another small flight of stairs and into the bamboo stalks and they disappeared from view.

"What's happening!?" Katara shouted. Toph knelt down to the ground placed a hand on the stones. Using her earth bending she felt the battle's vibrations.

"Sokka's using the bamboo stalks against him. He's cutting them down. Oh yeah, and they're both still alive." A couple of seconds later Sokka emerged screaming from the bamboo stalks, and what looked like a very angry master was in pursuit.

Sokka tripped, and rolled using his sword to fling dust into Piandao's eyes.

"Very resourceful." Piandao commented as his eyes snapped shut. He made no attempt to clear the dust that was obscuring his vision. Sokka froze for a moment, and then began to silently step away from the battle. He cringed as he heard the death bearing snapping sound of a branch.

With blind speed Sokka's master whipped around and had disarmed him in a flash. Sokka had just enough time to throw himself to the ground to avoid a deadly slash to his chest as his own sword flung through the air and landed ten feet away.

Robin exchanged a look with Aang, and Aang nodded. Piandao held the sword an inch away from Sokka's chest as the Gaang leapt over the railing to assist him.

Aang stopped as the master swordsman whipped his sword away from Sokka's cringing form, and opened his mouth to speak. "Excellent work Sokka."

Piandao flicked his fingers, and the butler threw his sheath over to him.

"I think I'm a little old to be fighting the avatar." He said.

"How did you know?" Aang asked in a confused tone.

"I've been around a while. Pick things up. Of course, I knew from the beginning Sokka was water tribe. You might want to think of a better cover name. Try Lee, there's a million Lees."

"If you knew from the start I was Water Tribe, then why did you agree to train me?" Sokka asked.

Piandao locked eyes with his student. "The way of the sword doesn't belong to any one nation. The knowledge of the arts belongs to us all." He walked over to Sokka's sword which was sticking out of the concrete at an odd angle and removed it from the ground. Sokka's eyes widened as his master held it out in front of him.

"Sokka," He began, "You must continue your training on your own. If you stay on this path, I know that one day you will become an ever greater master than I am." He bowed his head.

"Thank you, master." Sokka bowed respectfully in return. After saying their goodbyes, they were escorted to the entrance of the castle by his butler. He gave them a Pai Sho piece saying it was from 'the master', and returned inside.

"You know, we never actually learned that guy's name." Beast Boy remarked as they walked down the path away from the castle. The sun was setting slowly which perfectly fit with the mood of the day winding down to an end.

"Beast Boy, if I am remembering correctly, your name is Garfield?" Starfire asked suddenly. Beast Boy groaned at the sound of echoing laughter emanating from the small crowd around him.

* * *

**Well I can't say I'm satisfied with how I did the imagery with this chapter, but I was dying to update this thing for real. Hopefully in the next chapter the imagery will get better as time goes on. Nothing else to say really, except for I'd appreciate reviews. Thanks for reading!**


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